MicroR³ – MicrobialRNAs, Ribosomes and Regulation

The MicroR3 team seeks to understand how bacterial gene expression is regulated at the post-transcriptional level, with a focus on RNA- and ribosome-based mechanisms. Our goal is to reveal the molecular bases of key processes linked to bacterial pathogenicity and metabolism, using a combination of genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology and structural biology approaches. An area of particular interest is to uncover and characterize the small proteome, the collection of proteins of less than ~50 amino acids that has historically been overlooked by genome annotation programs, but which is increasingly shown to play important regulatory roles in bacteria. Finally, we study how bacterial processes are targeted by antibiotics and antimicrobial compounds, with the aim of better understanding mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and of developing new therapeutic and diagnostic tools.

Topics :

  • Metabolite sensing by ribosome-arresting peptides
  • Characterization of regulatory RNAs in Helicobacter pylori
  • Bacterial toxin functions and mechanisms
  • Genome-wide identification of arrest peptides
  • Activation of toxin-antitoxin systems to kill bacteria
  • New mechanisms for old antibiotics
  • Novel peptide-based antibiotic scaffolds

Approaches :

  • Biochemistry
  • Structural biology
  • Molecular biology
  • Genetics
  • Transcriptomics
  • Directed evolution
  • Microfluidics