Archaea and bacteria are very common organisms, but they are constantly having to fight off viruses that attack them It is estimated that there are around 10 bacteriophages per bacterium in the ocean, killing off up to 20-40% of the bacterial population every day. This battle between bacteria and archaea against viruses, which has been going on for billions of years, is a key driving force in evolution. Over the course of evolution, prokaryotes have acquired many antiviral defense systems, the best known of which are the restriction-modification and CRISPR-Cas systems. In recent years, prokaryotic defense systems have been the subject of particularly active research. More than 100 new systems have now been discovered and the number is still growing. It is expected that among the newly discovered defense systems, there will be those targeting DNA, RNA or both. Such systems could also be applied to the development of molecular biology tools, diagnostics and therapeutics. However, this requires comprehensive understanding of the structure, function and interactions of these defense systems.
The overall aim of this PhD project is to use cutting edge bioinformatics techniques to investigate newly discovered antiviral prokaryotic defense systems that protect against invasion of foreign DNA/RNA (viruses, plasmids). To this end, sensitive sequence discovery methods will be used to identify the proteins and homologs of selected defense systems. The genomic context will also be investigated in order to establish functional links and to predict putative protein complexes. All identified proteins and predicted complexes will be characterized in detail from an evolutionary, structural and functional point of view using a variety of bioinformatics tools. The project is expected to contribute to better understanding of the evolution, mechanisms of action and regulation of prokaryotic defense systems. It is expected that this project will be carried out in close collaboration with experimentalists.
The PhD project is open to applicants who have their training background in molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics or bioinformatics.
Mokslinis vadovas / Supervisor:
dr. Česlovas Venclovas; Biotechnologijos institutas, GMC, VU / Institute of Biotechnology, Life Sciences Center, Vilnius University
Kontaktai / Contacts:
tel. / phone: +370-5-223-4368
Programme: Biochemistry N 004