Stress Response in Bacteria

Bacteria often experience stressing conditions and adapt to these by changing their pattern of gene expression. An understanding of the cellular mechanisms by which they adapt and survive during periods of changing environmental conditions is crucial to our use of such organisms to produce food and to our efforts to inhibit or eliminate spoilage or pathogenic microorganisms. The current project is planned to provide a better understanding of some of the fundamental aspects of stress regulation in food relevant bacteria, and towards the possible influence of stress stimuli on virulence of food borne pathogens.
The project is structured in five subprojects, dealing specifically with 1) stimuli, genes and regulatory systems involved in the stress response in Lactococcus lactis; 2) signal transduction pathways involved in sensing and adaptation to stress in the related bacteria L.lactis and Listeria monocytogenes; 3) stress-induced cross-protection in L.monocytogenes; 4) genes and regulatory systems in Salmonella typhimurium involved in stress response and virulence; 5) molecular methods for in situ studies of stress factor expression in L.lactis and L.monocytogenes.