SEMINAR: Prof Cheryl Kerfeld, Michigan State University - Title: 'Structure, Function, Assembly and Engineering of the Carboxysome and other bacterial Microcompartments'

1:00pm - 2:00pm / Thursday 12th November 2015
Type: Seminar / Category: Department
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The carboxysome is a bacterial microcompartment found in all cyanobacte-ria. Cyanobacteria depend on the carboxysome to concentrate carbon dioxide near RuBisCO while minimizing the wasteful side reaction with oxygen. The carboxysome functions as an organelle but, in contrast to eukaryotic organelles, is composed entirely of protein; thousands of protein subunits self-assemble to form this ~300 MDa complex. The principles of carboxysome structure, function and assembly likely extend to other bacterial microcompartments of diverse functions. Our studies, using bioinformatics, structural biology and synthetic engineering approaches, lay the foundation for design and construction of synthetic nanoreactors based on bacterial microcompartment architecture.

Refs: Science 2005 309:936; Science 2008 319:1083; Cell 2013 155:1131; Plant Cell 2015 in press; ACS Synth Biol, 2015 4:444; PLoS Comput Biol 2014 10:e1003898; BMC Genomics 2014 15:977; JBC 2013 228:16055.