Deciphering the Roles of Glycosylation in Prokaryotic Biofilm Formation

• Applicant: Dr. Stefan Schulze
• Subject Area: Metabolism, Biochemistry and Genetics of Microorganisms ; Biochemistry
• Term: from 2017 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 398625447

Biofilms are complex structures that protect microbial communities from environmental stress. While beneficial applications of biofilms include their use in bioremediation and in the production of valuable chemical compounds, biofilm-based infections severely affect the health of millions of humans each year and significantly diminish crop production. Despite their growing importance to the economy, as well as human health, some aspects of the regulation of tightly controlled transitions between free swimming planktonic and biofilm-embedded sessile cells, particularly the roles played by post-translational modifications, remain poorly understood. Recent studies have suggested that early stages of biofilm formation in Haloferax volcanii, a well-established archaeal model system, are regulated by differential glycosylation of the flagella and pili, surface filaments required for motility and surface adhesion, respectively. Remarkably, glycosylation is also required for the motility and virulence of some pathogenic bacteria, pointing towards a general function of protein glycosylation in regulating biofilm formation. In this project, a detailed functional analysis of the early stages of H. volcanii biofilm formation will be performed using quantitative proteomics and novel bioinformatic tools to characterize the roles glycosylation, along with other modifications, play in regulating biofilm development. This approach will be complemented with phenotypical analyses of knockout and glycosylation site mutants of glycoproteins involved in pili and flagella biosynthesis as well as glycosylation pathway components. This strategy will be applied to Pseudomonas aeruginosa in order to shed new light on the roles of protein glycosylation in this emerging pathogen, especially with regard to biofilms, and will therefore be of great biomedical importance.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Dr. Mechthild Pohlschröder