Project description DEENESFRITPL Novel phenotyping reveals subcellular organisation without compartmentalisation Compartmentalisation is a fundamental characteristic of eukaryotic cells. The small membrane-bound organelles including the cell’s control centre with its DNA, the nucleus, and its energy ‘factory’, the mitochondria, provide a means of enhancing the efficiency with which individual functions occur. Unlike eukaryotic cells, bacterial cells lack this compartmentalisation. Despite their ‘simplicity’ as prokaryotic organisms, the mechanisms by which bacteria organise all the processes necessary for their growth and survival are poorly understood. The EU-funded BacterialBlueprint project will use its pioneering high-throughput single-cell phenomics approach for systematic characterisation of phenotypes within and across species to uncover the principles of subcellular organisation of bacterial replication. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Modern metagenomics has opened our eyes to the immense bacterial diversity that exists both among and within us. Despite this diversity, all bacteria share the basic challenge of organizing the various processes that ensure their faithful replication. All bacterial cells need to metabolize nutrients, generate building blocks, maintain their shape and size, replicate and segregate their chromosomes, synthesize cell walls and membranes, and divide to give rise to daughter cells. At present, we do not understand how bacteria integrate all these processes in their small cellular compartments. What makes this question even more intriguing is that bacteria represent simple forms of proliferating cells, without additional layers of internal organization (e.g. membrane-enclosed organelles) or cell cycle regulation (e.g. cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases) seen in eukaryotic cells. My goal is to address this gap by uncovering the internal architecture of bacterial replication and identifying the molecular mechanisms that underlie it. I will use a high-throughput single-cell phenomics approach that I developed and that provides high-content, quantitative cell biological information. By applying this approach across different levels of bacterial diversity (both within and across species, beyond the small number of currently existing model species), I aim to identify general and species-specific principles for the subcellular organization of replication in bacteria. This analysis will also enable the identification of key factors involved in establishing these governing principles, which will be functionally characterized further to provide a unique overview of the molecular mechanisms that determine the spatial organization of bacterial replication. If successful, this project will transform our understanding of bacterial cell biology by expanding it beyond current textbook standards and providing us with the blueprints and design principles of bacterial cells. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriologynatural sciencesbiological sciencescell biologynatural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticschromosomes Keywords Bacterial cell biology Intracellular organization Cell cycle Cell morphogenesis High-throughput single cell phenotyping Bacterial systems biology Quantitative fluorescence microscopy Programme(s) HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2021-STG - ERC STARTING GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2021-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants Host institution KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN Net EU contribution € 1 500 000,00 Address OUDE MARKT 13 3000 Leuven Belgium See on map Region Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 500 000,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN Belgium Net EU contribution € 1 500 000,00 Address OUDE MARKT 13 3000 Leuven See on map Region Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 500 000,00
