Molecular tool development for conditional protein degradation in the model bacterium Escherichia coli

Protein turnover is the balance between protein biosynthesis and protein degradation in living cells. Protein degradation is thereby not only a final destiny but also an essential and carefully regulated mechanism to maintain cell fitness. Even though the key players for protein degradation are known for long, only few aspects of protein recognition, unfolding and degradation have been characterised mechanistically in bacteria.
A dynamic regulation of protein stability is a key interest in applications in synthetic biology, biotechnology, metabolic engineering and fundamental research. However, only a few tools for conditional protein degradation have been developed in bacteria so far. This thesis presents two attempts to improve the available tool box for conditional degradation of soluble proteins as well as membrane proteins in E. coli.