Graduate Students Mini Symposium II 2023
Microbiology Seminar Series
- Date: Feb 13, 2023
- Time: 01:15 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Location: MPI for Terrestrial Microbiology
- Room: Lecture Hall / Hybrid
- Host: IMPRS
- Contact: imprs@mpi-marburg.mpg.de
Program
13:15 h Nadya Abbood - AG Bode
"Type S NRPS as a Tool for the Rapid Construction of Engineered
Non-Ribosomal Peptide Synthetases"
With the
introduction of the SYNZIP (SZ) assisted reprogramming of NRPSs, we established
a new engineering method that enables the generation of engineered NRPSs on a
large scale. SZs are synthetic leucine zippers with an affinity less than 10
nm, which we attached to various NRPS building blocks, extracted from different
biosynthetic gene cluster of the strains Photorhabdus,
Xenorhabdus and Bacillus, generating a new synthetic type of NRPSs (type S NPRS). Bioengineering these
giant machineries spur chances to access modified peptides with altered
physiochemical properties or improved bioactivities.1Microbial nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS) are multi-modular
enzymes that produce many important therapeutic drugs including antibiotics,
anti-cancer or immunosuppressive agents.
13:45 h Stefano Lometto - MPRG Hochberg
"Evolution of a fiber-forming enzyme"
Previous investigations showed how a mitochondrial Citrate synthase (CS) in
the unicellular eukaryote Tetrahyemna thermophila is capable of forming
filamentous structures similar to intermediate cytoskeletal filaments. By using a combination of ancestral sequence
reconstruction (ASR) and experimental biochemisrty we aim to elucidate the
evolution and the mechanisms underpinning fiber formation. Furthermore, using
in vivo confocal microscopy we determine weather such ordered complexity is a
product of natural selection or neutral evolution.
14:15 h Lara Connolley - AG Murray
"tba"