25.06.2024 Prof. Jörg Stülke with news from Bacillus subtilis

The inspiring talk sparked in-depth questions and a lively discussion at the MPI lecture hall.

On 24 and 25 July, we welcomed Prof. Dr. Jörg Stülke to RTG 2937. The professor of microbiology at the Institute of Microbiology and Genetics in Göttingen, who is Head of the Department of General Microbiology,  was a highly sought-after discussion partner for a range of Marburg researchers on both days.

The Stülke lab studies the regulation of metabolism in the pathogenic bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae and the model organism Bacillus subtilis. They are following global (“post-genomic”) and gene-specific approaches. In Bacillus subtilis, metabolism is studied by transcriptomics, metabolome and fluxome analyses. The specific interests are focussed on two key pathways: glycolysis and glutamate biosynthesis, the decisive link between carbon and nitrogen metabolism. The regulation of glycolysis is studied at the level of a controlled protein-RNA interaction. Regulation through RNA has become widely recognized in the past few years. The lab’s studies revealed that glycolytic enzymes themselves are part of a protein complex that is required for mRNA processing and degradation. Interest is also directed at systems biology approaches to the analysis of B. subtilis and the development of web interfaces for the functional annotation.