Elucidating the determinants of cation import across the kingdoms of life

金属离子锰对所有形式的生命都是必不可少的。该项目旨在研究如何通过使用最先进的生化和微生物技术，从环境的化学复杂性中选择性地获得这种缺乏丰富的阳离子，并将其输入细胞。该项目旨在确定细菌、古细菌和真核质体阳离子选择性进口商如何从化学相似的阳离子中区分锰以实现选择性摄取的基本基础。这项工作的预期结果将是对生物系统中选择性金属进口的基本基础的理解。这将通过对这些知识的合成生物学应用为工业提供好处。

The metal ion manganese is essential to all forms of life. This project aims to investigate how this poorly abundant cation is selectively acquired from the chemical complexity of the environment for import into cells by using state-of-the-art biochemical and microbiological techniques. This project expects to define the fundamental basis for how bacterial, archaeal and eukaryotic plastid cation-selective importers can discriminate manganese from chemical similar cations to achieve selective uptake. The expected outcomes of this work will be an understanding of the fundamental basis for selective metal import in biological systems. This should provide benefits for industry through synthetic biological applications of this knowledge.