Psychrophilic essential genes

该提案描述了一项研究计划，该计划将嗜冷细菌的生物学研究与发现可用于工程医学和工业中使用的微生物的必需基因变体相结合。生活在持续寒冷环境中的细菌，如北极，通常在中等温度（10-30°C）下被杀死。这种现象可能是由于生存所需的一种必需蛋白质失活所致。在本申请中，我们提出实验来测试这种假设是否正确。此外，我们还建立在我们最近从北极细菌中分离必需基因的工作基础上。通过研究这些基因编码的蛋白质的特性，我们希望了解北极细菌在低温下死亡的原因，并确定不同细菌物种之间的细菌死亡机制是否不同。这项基础研究具有实际应用，特别是在将致病细菌改造成安全形式方面。

This proposal describes a research program that combines the study of the biology of psychrophilic (cold-loving) bacteria with the discovery of variants of essential genes that can be used to engineer microbes used in medicine and industry. Bacteria that live in constantly cold environments, such as the Arctic, are usually killed at moderate (10-30°C) temperatures. This phenomenon is presumably due to the inactivation of an essential protein that is needed for viability. In this application we propose experiments to test if this presumption is true. As well, we build on our recent work in isolating essential genes from Arctic bacteria. By studying the properties of the proteins that these genes encode we hope to learn why Arctic bacteria die at low temperatures, and to determine if the mechanism of bacterial death is different among different bacterial species. This basic research has practical applications, especially in engineering disease causing bacteria into safe forms.