Set-up of evolution experiments in chemostats

• Grant number: 11/00125-2
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: May 08, 2011
• End date: May 21, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Molecular Genetics and Genetics of Microorganisms
• Principal Investigator: Beny Spira
• Grantee: Beny Spira
• Visiting researcher: Thomas Ferenci
• Visiting researcher institution: University of Sydney, Australia
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In the past five years, the labs of T. Ferenci and B. Spira have initiated collaborative research, which has reached a new and exciting phase. The collaboration was started when B. Spira spent a year in Sydney on a FAPESP fellowship (proc. no. 2005/01049-7). The plan for this initial period involved studies on the variation of global gene regulation within a bacterial species. We investigated how the general stress resistance of Escherichia coli is subject to strain variation and how it depended on the cellular levels of signaling molecules. Experiments carried out in Sydney and later in São Paulo have revealed how an important intracellular signaler of stress, the molecule ppGpp, is not at equivalent levels in different members of the same species. This project was successful and is still on-going, and several papers were jointly published on this topic (Spira et al., 2008; Spira and Ferenci, 2008; Ferenci and Spira, 2007). A fourth paper on this subject is under preparation. Another line of research started in Sydney was about the sympatric evolution of bacteria under Pi-limitation. This work have hitherto resulted in a publication (Wang L; Spira B et al., 2010) in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution. This paper was the subject of an article published by Agência FAPESP (http://www.agencia.fapesp.br/materia/12727/especiais/evolucao-divergente.htm). These results have both microbiological and evolutionary implications. (AU)