Overview
In this project, you will be working to understand how viruses such as coronaviruses, caliciviruses and picornaviruses interact with infected cells, with a focus on post-translational modifications. You will learn molecular virology, cell culture assays, and LC-MS/MS proteomic methods alongside bioinformatic analysis in R.
About this opportunity
RNA viruses represent major pathogens of animals and humans, including SARS-CoV-2, norovirus, and pathogens with pandemic potential such as MERS-CoV and ‘Disease X’. Positive-sense RNA viruses, such as those above, replicate by generating a long polyprotein that is post-translationally cleaved by viral and in some cases cellular proteases into various fully- and partially-cleaved forms that come together to regulate viral infection. An additional layer of regulation can come from post-translational modification of viral proteins, such as phosphorylation, methylation or nucleotidylation. In this project you will build on and extend the groups extensive data to characterise post-translational modifications of viral and cellular proteins throughout positive-sense RNA virus infection, and characterise the pro- and antiviral roles they play, and if they serve a regulatory purpose in the viral life cycle.
There is flexibility in how this project develops, with two key directions this project can go – the viral characterisation aspect, or developing LC-MS/MS methods to better characterise rare PTMs. In the former case this would suit candidates with prior virology experience, and in the latter case with prior LC-MS/MS experience.
For this project, you will be based in The Emmott Lab, part of the Centre for Proteome Research, and the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Liverpool, with access to cutting-edge equipment including a cellenONE for single-cell sample preparation, containment level 3 laboratories, and the latest generation Orbitrap Astral Zoom for mass spectrometry analysis.