INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION IN CHEMISTRY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHEMICAL PROBES FOR HOPANOID FUNCTION

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We are interested in studying a set of chemicals found in bacteria called hopanoids. These chemicals were thought to be 'molecular fossils' that provided information on the evolution of how bacteria processed chemicals and obtained energy. However, recent work has shown that the function of hopanoids is more complex than originally thought. Indeed, it seems likely that hopanoids still play an important role in recent bacteria. In order to understand better the function of hopanoids we are planning to make new and unnatural hopanoid derivatives that have additional functions that will assist these studies. We plan to make fluorescent ('glow in the dark') hopanoids that will allow us to study where they are found in cells. We also plan to make molecular 'fishing rods', using hopanoids as the 'bait', to determine what other molecules, especially proteins, that hopanoids interact with in cells. These chemical 'probes' will allow us to understand how the hopanoids exert their effects within cells and may potentially identify new targets for harming bacteria, which will be interesting for the development of antibiotics.