Noisy Strep

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Summary. Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major pathogen causing invasive (pneumonia, meningitis, bacteraemia) and non-invasive (acute otitis media, sinusitis) disease in children and in elderly and/or immuno-compromised adults. The last decades have seen the emergence and spread of pneumococcal strains with multiple antibiotic resistance posing a serious threat to human health. The strategy of the pathogen development is regulated by so called bistability, and may lead to formation of drug resistant forms of bacteria, such as biofilms. Transcriptional noise is the main determinant of switching of bistable systems. Therefore, understanding of molecular mechanisms giving birth to the noise in transcription in S. pneumoniae is highly medically relevant. By using cutting-edge techniques in biochemistry and microbiology as well as mathematical modelling we will address the problem of origins of transcriptional noise in S. pneumonia. This will result in a high resolution systems-level understanding of the role of transcriptional noise in gene regulation of a human pathogen. The results will potentially provide a new target for intelligent drug design to manipulate differentiation and life-strategy decisions of pathogenic bacteria.