The overall goal of this project is to understand the mechanism by which bacteria survive and proliferate in many different environments. Transport proteins in the membrane of bacteria are largely responsible for these adaptations. The aim of this project is to understand how these proteins allow bacteria to adjust their metabolism to different environmental conditions. This knowledge will contribute to the field of bacterial ecology. This knowledge will also contribute to many areas of biotechnology. For example, engineering bacteria that are capable of specific adaptive responses is important for waste remediation, metabolic engineering, and bacterial production of natural and artificial products. This project will expose high school students and undergraduate students to research. Efforts to broaden participation in the sciences are a major component of this project.
The overall objective of the project is to understand bacterial adaptation at the molecular level. The goal is to understand the mechanism by which Pseudomonas aeruginosa adapts to different environments through the operation of its proton and sodium transporters, and through changes in expression patterns of the various branches of its respiratory chain and its sodium/proton antiporters. There are two goals in the project: 1) defining which of these enzymes are expressed as Pseudomonas aeruginosa adapts to a range of culture conditions and growth phases; 2) defining the roles of the component enzymes by constructing strains in which one or more of these enzymes have been deleted. Sodium/proton antiporter deletion strains will be used as backgrounds for studying the role of the NADH dehydrogenases and their deletions, by disconnecting the sodium and proton gradients. The role of the three NADH dehydrogenases and the antiporters, and how changes in their expression support adaptation, will be defined. The project will contribute to the basic understanding of how bacteria adapt to different environments. This knowledge is essential for almost any application involving bacteria including biological waste remediation and the use of bacteria to synthesize natural and artificial products. It will also contribute to development of new ways to fight bacterial diseases including those caused by antibiotic resistant strains.
