The new research training group “Molecular principles of bacterial survival strategies” was granted by the DFG in 2011 and will be launched in April 2012. It addresses the question, how bacteria maintain viability in adverse environments. Exponential growth by bacteria occurs only under optimal conditions for a limited period of time. In many habitats, however, they are exposed to antagonistic conditions, arresting their growth or challenging their viability. Consequently, bacteria acquired during evolution elaborated strategies to withstand and overcome unfavourable conditions. These processes are fundamental for bacteria to protect their niches and colonize new habitats. Therefore, this issue is of highest relevance in bacterial ecology, physiology and medicine, e.g. for understanding the dispersal of bacterial pathogens and for the development of new antimicrobial drugs. 13 projects are devoted to the investigation of bacterial survival strategies involving maintenance-metabolism, detoxification, repair pathways and protective substances and structures. The research training group provides a new interdisciplinary research and graduate-training/qualification platform for fundamental microbiology in Tübingen. 

The GRK 1708 is composed of the following groups/projects from the IMIT (interfaculty institute for microbiology and infection medicine), form the Geomicrobiology, the Organic Chemistry and the Max-Planck Institue for developmental biology:

P1: Identification of Strategies & Mechanisms to Survive Encrustation during Microbial Fe(II) Oxidation on a Cellular and Physiological  Level (A. Kappler, Geomicrobiology)

P2: Surviving Iron Encrustation: Molecular and Genetic Mechanisms of Microbial Fe(II) Oxidation (S. Behrens, Geomicrobiology)

P3: Akinetes: Resistant Cells of Filamentous Cyanobacteria (I. Maldener, IMIT)

P4: Starvation-induced chlorosis in Cyanobacteria: Survival in „Stand-By“ (K. Forchhammer, IMIT)

P5: Protective Stationary Phase Compounds in Bacteria (K. Forchhammer, IMIT)

P6: Chemistry of Actinomyces sp.  and its Role in Plant Interactions: Metabolite Patterns of Successful Bacterial Competitors in Plant Habitats (S. Grond, Organic Chemistry)

P7: Antibiosis by Streptomycetes: Active Defense or Microbial Communication? (W. Wohlleben, IMIT)

P8: Survival strategies of commensal Escherichia coli in the inflamed mouse intestine (I. Autenrieth/J. Fricke, IMIT)

P9: Prolin hydroxylation: how Pseudomonas aeruginosa copes with hypoxia (G. Döring, IMIT)

P10: Finding the trigger for metabolic silencing: a major cause of persistant infections (F. Götz, IMIT)

P11: Bacterial resistance to skin antimicrobial fatty acids (A. Peschel, IMIT)

P12: Nematocidal Bacillus strains: Killing the predator (R. Sommer, MPI)

P13: Stress response in Staphylococcus aureus during infection and colonization, (C. Wolz, IMIT)

For further informations and contact:

Speaker: Karl Forchhammer (karl.forchhammer@uni-tuebingen.de)

Vice-Speaker: Andreas Kappler (andreas.kappler@uni-tuebingen.de)