Descrizione del progetto
Studiare i batteri predatori
Il progetto JAWS, finanziato dall’UE, intende studiare i batteri predatori e, in particolare, gli aspetti molecolari, cellulari ed ecologici del comportamento predatorio collettivo adottato da tali microrganismi. Il progetto concentrerà l’attenzione sul modo in cui il Myxococcus xanthus invade le colonie di prede e si alimenta direttamente dalle cellule di queste ultime mediante uccisione dipendente dal contatto. Esso approfondirà inoltre le modalità attraverso cui le cellule di questo batterio si diffondono tra la colonia di prede come onde coordinate per prepararsi al successivo ciclo predatorio. La metodologia del progetto si baserà sullo sviluppo di un nuovo strumento di immaginografia, chiamato Bacto-Hubble, che acquisirà l’intero ciclo predatorio con una risoluzione a singola cellula. Alla fine, il progetto produrrà un modello del ciclo predatorio del Myxococcus che farà luce su altri processi predatori multicellulari.
Obiettivo
Predation arguably impacts the evolution and shape of ecological systems. This process occurs at all scales from mammals to viruses. Predatory bacteria remain poorly studied despite their biological importance and often versatile experimental tractability. In this project, we propose to remedy this gap and study the molecular, cellular and ecological aspects of a collective bacterial predatory behavior. Specifically, capitalizing from previous molecular studies on motility, we will investigate how Myxococcus xanthus invades prey colonies and directly feeds on the prey cells by contact-dependent killing. We will then explore how the Myxococcus cells disseminate throughout the prey colony as concerted waves, thus preparing the next predatory cycle. While these experiments will be conducted in laboratory context, we will link molecular mechanisms of predation to ecological dynamics that actually occur in the wild directly by genomic analyses of environmental isolates and experimental evolution of predator-prey interactions. The feasibility of the project is guaranteed by the development of a new imaging tool (Bacto-Hubble) that captures the entire predatory cycle at single cell resolution. In addition, our laboratory recently identified for the first time the Myxococcus genes that promote contact-dependent killing, paving to molecular studies of prey killing and consumption. This project is uniquely multiscale and its realization requires true interdisciplinarity. For this, we will assemble a large collaborative network to connect approaches from the realms of genetics, structural biochemistry, theory and modeling and large-scale genomics. At the end of the project, we expect to obtain a first spatially resolved molecular blueprint of the Myxococcus predatory cycle, which will provide a framework to understand other multicellular predatory processes and well as their evolutionary trajectories.
Campo scientifico
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgenetics
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiological behavioural sciencesethologybiological interactions
- natural sciencesbiological scienceszoologymammalogy
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantIstituzione ospitante
75794 Paris
Francia