Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Single Molecule Investigations in Living E. coli

Objective

The overall ambition is to make intracellular measurements that bridge the gap between quantitative physical models and biological observations, in order to identify and resolve inconsistencies in our current understanding of life at the molecular level.
We are particularly interested in answering fundamental questions about how the molecules that regulate gene expression and DNA replication operate in the intracellular environment. These questions include how transcription factors and RNA polymerases have evolved to rapidly find and bind their specific binding sites on chromosomal DNA, how the initiation of DNA replication is coordinated with cell growth, how cells can filter out leakage during replication of repressed genes, and other questions related to how the physical limitations of molecular interactions constrain cellular regulation.
Answering these questions requires better methods to study intracellular kinetics at high spatial and temporal resolution. For this purpose we will develop single-molecule methods to probe kinetics without perturbing the system. The project depends on development in five different fields (1) new labeling methods using unnatural amino acids, (2) new hardware solutions for single molecule tracking, (3) new microfluidic designs for controlled growth conditions and image analysis, (4) new computational tools to extract the maximal amount of information from many short single molecule trajectories and (5) accurate ways of computing synthetic microscopy images.
In addressing the specific questions stated above the experiments are necessarily combined with biophysical modeling that makes it possible to tell if the experimental results are expected from the previously known interactions and physical limitations due to for example stochasticity, slow diffusion and confined geometries. Overall the project is unique in its ambition to make a physically consistent quantitative description of central processes of life at the molecular level.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

ERC-2013-CoG
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-CG - ERC Consolidator Grants

Host institution

UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
EU contribution
€ 2 398 823,00
Address
VON KRAEMERS ALLE 4
751 05 Uppsala
Sweden

See on map

Region
Östra Sverige Östra Mellansverige Uppsala län
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0