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Impact and interaction of prophage elements in bacterial host strains of biotechnological relevance

Objective

Phages, viruses that prey on bacteria, are the most abundant and diverse inhabitants of the Earth. Temperate bacteriophages are able to integrate into the host genome and maintain as prophages a long-term association with their host. Illustrated by the development of mutually beneficial traits, this close interaction between host and virus has significantly shaped bacterial evolution. However, the immense genetic resources of phage genomes still remain almost unexplored. For the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy, we strongly depend on microbes as hosts for the production of value-added compounds. PRO_PHAGE will exploit recent advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS), single-cell analysis, and high-throughput (HT) phenotyping to evaluate the impact of phage elements on host fitness and to use this knowledge for the improvement of future metabolic engineering approaches.
By combining an explorative approach with subsequent molecular analysis of selected targets, PRO_PHAGE will deliver novel insights into this genetic resource and will reveal the risks and potential for metabolic engineering by pursuing four major objectives. 1) Based on a comprehensive bioinformatic analysis, the impact of phage elements will be studied by HT phenotyping of selected strains. 2) The regulatory interaction of phage and host will be analysed by focusing on host-encoded xenogeneic silencing proteins and their role in the integration of foreign DNA. 3) The spontaneous activation of phage elements will be studied at the genomic scale to decipher molecular triggers and their impact on host gene expression. For this purpose, a novel workflow combining fluorescence-activated cell sorting and NGS will be developed, which will be broadly applicable for studying microbial population dynamics at unprecedented resolution. 4) Finally, the insights obtained will be benchmarked for metabolic engineering approaches in order to generate robust and flexible chassis strains for industrial product

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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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-STG - Starting Grant

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2017-STG

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Host institution

FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 482 672,00
Address
WILHELM JOHNEN STRASSE
52428 JULICH
Germany

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Region
Nordrhein-Westfalen Köln Düren
Activity type
Research Organisations
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.

€ 1 482 672,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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