Projects
TisB-mediated persistence in Escherichia coli
The type I toxin-antitoxin system tisB/istR-1 is studied as a model system for toxin-induced dormancy in Escherichia coli. Toxin TisB is a small hydrophobic protein with a length of 29 amino acid residues and causes depolarization of the inner membrane. We are interested in TisB functionality and how TisB shapes the physiology of bacterial persister cells.
(Edelmann & Berghoff (2022) Front Microbiol; Edelmann et al. (2021) Environ Microbiol Rep; Edelmann & Berghoff (2019) Sci Rep; Spanka et al. (2019) Front Microbiol)
Synthetic small RNAs as tools for gene regulation
Small RNAs (sRNAs) are versatile regulators in prokaryotes. In most cases, sRNAs consist of distinct modules, such as seed regions, binding sites for RNA-binding proteins, and Rho-independent terminator hairpins. Synthetic biology approaches will be used to recombine these modules and construct (semi-) synthetic sRNAs for gene regulation in bacteria. We will explore the potential of these synthetic sRNAs to control complex phenotypic traits, such as antibiotic resistance and production of biomaterials.
(Philipp, Brinkmann et al. (2023) Bioinformatics; Köbel, Melo Palhares, et al. (2022) ACS Synth Biol)
Funding