Project description
Unrolling the secrets of bacterial weapons
Inside some bacteria, vast coiled protein structures called R-bodies lie in wait. They are tightly packed rolls that can suddenly uncoil to 20 times their length when triggered by acidity. Once thought to exist only in symbiotic bacteria, R-bodies have now been found in free-living species too, but their purpose and mechanism remain mysterious. The ERC-funded Fun-ContRoll project aims to uncover how these structures assemble, extend, and interact with their surroundings. By studying whether R-bodies deliver toxins, defend against parasites, or help maintain symbiosis, researchers aim to reveal their true biological role. They are also assessing whether these ancient bacterial tools could inspire new biotechnological or medical applications.
Objective
R-bodies are probably the largest organised intracellular proteinaceous structures in bacteria. They adopt a roll-like structure that occupies almost the entire cellular volume. Upon acidification, R-bodies extend telescopically up to 20 micrometres. First discovered in endosymbiotic bacteria, they were proposed to eliminate symbiont-free hosts, however their mechanism of toxicity remained unexplored. In addition, structures of similar composition and activity form ejectile defence organelles in Cryptomonads. Recently, we found that free-living environmental bacteria from the phylum Bacteroidota also produce R-bodies. In the Fun-ContRoll project we will study the assembly and conformational change mechanisms of these structures. We will investigate their mechanism of action and ask whether it depends on the extension or delivery of associated toxic effectors. To understand their biological role, we will explore hypotheses about their costs and benefits to the bacterial cell and to population. Alternatively, we will assess their role in establishing and maintaining the symbiosis. We will evaluate whether their biological role has pathogenic potential or, on the contrary, could help to eliminate parasitic species that cause disease and spread pathogenic bacteria. Finally, we will try to understand the strict regulatory mechanisms that controls the heterogeneity in the population, leading to a well-defined fraction of the population that produces these giant structures.
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 microbiology bacteriology
- natural sciences biological sciences biological behavioural sciences ethology biological interactions
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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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(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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1050 BRUXELLES
Belgium
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