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Infrastructure and resources

The Becker lab hosts the Screening and Automation Technologies (SAT) Facility, which is part of the SYNMIKRO Technology Platform. The SAT facility supports laboratory automation, automated microscopy, Next Generation Sequencing, as well as cultivation of microbes and plants. Moreover, it provides genetic resources  for synthetic biology chassis organisms used in our lab.

Screening and Automation Technologies (SAT) Facility 

The lab hosts the Screening and Automation Technologies (SAT) Facility equipped with cutting-edge integrated laboratory automation platforms, state-of-the-art devices for Next Generation Sequencing, a parallel bioreactor system, and plant cultivation chambers.

Photo: R. Zülch

Dr. Javier Serrania
Phone: 06421-28 24452
Mail:      javier.serrania@synmikro.uni-marburg.de

Genetic resources for bacterial chassis

Signature-tagged transposon mutants 

A set of 412 sequence-barcoded miniTn5 transposons was generated. Each transposon contains two individual 24 bp barcode sequences flanked by invariant regions that serve as primer sites for PCR amplification. 

This set of transposons was used to generate a signature-tagged mutant (STM) library in Sinorhizobium meliloti Rm2011. This library consists of 30 mutant sets. These mutant sets can be applied for competition experiments or individual mutants can be studied. About 9000 individual mutants with sequenced insertion sites are available upon request.

Download the list of available mTn5-STM S. meliloti 2011 mutants.

View mapped transposon insertion sites in the GenDB genome browser (select S. meliloti replicon from the list of contigs in the GenDB genome browser).

Procedure for mutant requests

To request strains, mutants and plasmids please write an email to , cc

Use the subject "strain request" and please provide your FedEx customer No. for payment of shipping by the recipient.

Key references

Salas ME, Lozano MJ, Lopez JL, Draghi W, Serrania J, Torres Tejerizo GA, Albicoro FJ, Nilsson JF, Pistorio M, del Papa MF, Parisi G, Becker A, Lagares A (2017) Specificity traits consistent with legume-rhizobia coevolution displayed by Sinorhizobium meliloti rhizosphere colonization. Environ Microbiol 19:3423-3438

Pobigaylo N, Wetter D, Szymczak S, Schiller U, Kurtz S, Meyer F, Nattkemper TW, Becker A (2006) Construction of a large sequence signature-tagged miniTn5 transposon library and its application to mutagenesis of Sinorhizobium meliloti. Appl Environ Microbiol 72:4329-4337

Pobigaylo N, Szymczak S, Nattkemper TW, Becker A (2008) Identification of genes relevant to symbiosis and competitiveness in Sinorhizobium meliloti using signature-tagged mutants. Mol Plant-Microbe Interact 21: 219-231

Serrania J, Johner T, Rupp O, Goesmann A, Becker A (2017) Massive parallel insertion site sequencing of an arrayed Sinorhizobium meliloti signature-tagged mini-Tn5 transposon mutant library. J Biotechnol 257:9-12