CRC TRR 34: Pathophysiology of Staphylococci in the Post-Genome-Era

Basic data for this project

Description

Staphylococcus aureus is a human pathogen of increasing significance. Because antibiotic resistances are spreading, this bacterium has become a threat to the human race. A better understanding of its infection biology is urgently required to successfully combat the pathogen. In the post-genomic era, the availability of the genome sequences of several strains of S. aureus and also other staphylococcal species provides the basis for a comprehensive understanding of their cell physiology and infection biology as an entity. The basic concept of this Transregional Collaborative Research Centre initiative is to combine long-standing expertises in Tübingen and Würzburg in cell physiology/biochemistry and infection biology of S. aureus in general with the established expertise in proteomics of Gram-positive bacteria in Greifswald. The unique structure places this consortium in a favourable position to effectively take advantage of the great opportunities offered by the post-genomic era and to achieve a new quality of understanding of the life processes of this pathogen. The global aims of the three main project areas of the consortium (A, B and C) can be summarised as follows: to use functional genomics techniques to come to a new understanding of cell physiology as an essential prerequisite for the understanding of infection biology, focussing on two main parts: basic understanding of cell metabolism and stress/starvation responses (project area A); comprehensive analysis of the regulation, function and structure of virulence factors as components of the complex gene expression network (project area B). to use the great potential of gel-based and gel-free proteomics to investigate new fields of cell physiology of S. aureus (protein targeting and secretion, phosphoproteomics and signal transduction, interactomics, protein damage, proteome-wide proteolysis). In the first funding period, the physiology of S. aureus and its role in the behaviour of the pathogen in the host are of prime interest. This knowledge will contribute to a better understanding of the host-pathogen interaction (project area C), which will be focussed on in the second funding period. Finally, all the quantitative "omics" data that are generated under standardised conditions will pave the way towards a systems biology approach to S. aureus.