Project description
Investigating cell polarity robustness during evolution
Cells function as intricate machines, with proteins interacting to perform essential tasks. Surprisingly, closely related species can lack key proteins while still maintaining core cellular functions. Research indicates that yeast can adapt to the loss of a crucial protein by eliminating other proteins, thereby restoring cellular polarity and influencing multiple biological processes. The ERC-funded PolarRobustness project will study evolved polarity networks in budding yeast. It will examine how cellular polarity remains robust over evolutionary time by analysing changes in protein copy numbers, post-translational modifications (PTMs), and self-organisation. The project will use transposon sequencing for cellular analysis, live-cell microscopy to assess polarity stability, and mass spectrometry to study gene expression and protein interactions.
Objective
Cells are often viewed as intricate machines, in which specific proteins work together in a tightly coordinated fashion to give rise to cellular functions. Surprisingly however, some proteins that are essential for core cellular functions in one species are absent in closely related species, while the core function itself is maintained. How this robustness is achieved, while the underlying molecular networks dramatically diversify during evolution is currently not understood. As a post-doc I showed that the polarity network in yeast can evolutionarily adapt to the loss of an important protein by losing three more proteins. My lab showed that these losses repair polarity through a collective adaptive response, affecting many cellular processes rather than only a few proteins. How do intricate cellular networks collectively achieve such evolutionary robustness?
We will address this question with a library of experimentally evolved polarity networks in budding yeast to (1) investigate how general a collective adaptive response is, (2) examine which spatiotemporal aspects of polarity establishment are evolutionary robust, (3) determine how changes in (i) protein copy-numbers, (ii) post-translational modifications (PTMs), and (iii) buffering by self-organization, contribute to evolutionary robustness, and (4) dissect the molecular mechanisms. We will use transposon sequencing to identify the cellular processes involved, live cell microscopy to compare the robustness of various aspects of polarity, and mass spectrometry to compare changes in gene expression, PTMs and interaction partners. We will use multiscale simulations, rooted in statistical physics and constrained by our experimental results, to dissect how molecular changes propagate through the polarity network to achieve evolutionary robustness.
Our approach will go beyond yeast polarity, because it can be applied to any functional protein network to deepen our understanding of how life works and evolves.
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.
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.
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- natural sciences physical sciences optics microscopy
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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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.
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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.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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2628 CN Delft
Netherlands
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