In this course, the students will learn the various systems used by bacteria to sense and face stress in their environments or during infection.
The students will be able (i) to describe at the molecular level the signalling systems used by bacteria upon general or specific stressful conditions and also (ii) to extract and summarize key data from a scientific publication on the topic bacterial stress response & signalling.
The course will be divided in 3 major parts (the lists are not exhaustive):
I. Stress encountered by bacteria
- Environmental conditions (temperatures, salt, pH, …)
- Nutrient starvation
- Osmotic shock
- Envelope injuries
- DNA damages
- Oxidative stress and heavy metals exposure
- Antibiotics treatment
- Infection and Immunity
II. Mechanisms used by bacteria to sense and face stressful conditions
- Two-component signal transduction systems
- Transcription and sigma factors
- Phosphotransferase systems
- Post-transcriptional/translational regulations
- Proteolysis and chaperones
- Second messengers molecules
III. Examples of Bacterial Stress Response in model bacterial organisms
- The sporulation in Bacillus subtilis
- The envelope stress in Escherichia coli
- The DNA damages in Escherichia coli and Caulobacter crescentus
- The osmotic stress in Gram-positive bacteria
- Oxidative stress in Escherichia coli
- Nutrient starvation in Escherichia coli and Caulobacter crescentus
- The heat- and cold-shock response of Escherichia coli
- The General stress response in alpha- and gamma-proteobacteria
- Persistence and tolerance to antibiotics of Salmonella during infection
- Protection against foreign DNA invasion in Escherichia coli
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For the evaluation, the students will have to read a scientific publication on the topic bacterial stress response & signalling and explain its content during an oral exam. Questions about the molecular mechanisms seen during the course and connected to the publication will be asked during the exam.
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