Write to Us

“The influence of mobile elements on bacterial metabolism. Dynamic polymers of alpha-helical NCN-type Kfr plasmid proteins in the organization of the prokaryotic “mitotic spindle”

The offer concerns research as part of a doctoral thesis as well as student volunteering. The position of a PhD student is financed by the National Science Center. The research concerns the explanation of the role of the Kfr protein in the biology of plasmids that have a wide host range.

What does it mean? It means that such plasmids are ubiquitous and can successfully replicate in various classes of bacteria. On the one hand, this makes them a valuable biotechnological tool, and on the other hand, a troublesome mobile genetic element that is responsible for the spread of drug resistance among phylogenetically distant species of bacteria isolated from soil, aquatic environment and from hospital patients.

These plasmids are very stable, i.e. without selective pressure (e.g. adding antibiotic for culture) persist in cells for many generations. KfrA, is involved in the stabilization of plasmid DNA molecules. Research is ongoing, because we want to understand exactly how Kfr participates in this process. One of the research approaches to the problem is to conduct a structural analysis of the protein, and KfrA has a very interesting structure, because it looks like a ship’s rope.ship’s rope

The project I would like to interest you in is being carried out in a consortium, so we are not alone. Some of the research tasks concern microscopic analysis and localization of proteins in the cell using fluorescent markers, TEM analysis (electron microscopy, studies of the interaction of Kfr with other proteins, e.g. using thermophoresis) and analysis of the metabolome of bacteria that carry plasmids with mutated kfr genes. In order to conduct an accurate characterization of Kfr proteins, it is also necessary to design mutants in the functional domains of this protein.

We will conduct an analysis of the binding of mutated forms of Kfr to oligonucleotides immobilized on the sensor and determine the binding constants using a quartz balance.

To sum up, the work concerns: conducting bacterial cultures, DNA manipulation, PCR, cloning, overproduction and purification of proteins, protein imaging and studying in vivo and in vitro interactions, using the latest biophysical techniques, and finally… metabolomics and analysis of protein modifications using mass spectrometry. Not all tasks will be carried out at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology. Work is already underway.

If you are interested in the offer, please send me your CV.

Please write to me if you have any new questions.