Présentation
Capsules are the outermost layer of some bacteria and the first contact between the cell and its environment. Our previous research showed that capsulated bacteria are better colonizers and are dominant in most environments suggesting a positive role for capsules in the genetic diversification of bacteria.
Using Klebsiella pneumoniae as a model system, a nosocomial pathogen causing lung, urinary and liver infections, this project aims to:(i) quantify the short-termfitness and metabolic costs of capsule expression in different environments, (ii) understand how capsules affect bacterial adaptation to new environments, and (iii) determine the role of capsules in genetic transfer and the long-term evolution of genomes.
This multidisciplinary project combining experimental and computational biology will provide an overview to how capsules affect bacterial evolvability and will contribute to identify the adaptive trends of bacteria to better predict evolutionary outcomes in the wild.