Professor Kazimierz Bassalik Award for the Faculty of Biotechnology team
A research team from the Faculty of Biotechnology of the University of Wrocław has been awarded the main Professor Kazimierz Bassalik Award. The prize is awarded annually by the Molecular Biology Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences for the best Polish articles in the field of microbiology.
The awarded article is concerned with the study of soil bacteria of the genus Streptomyces, widely known for producing a number of substances used as antibiotics, anticancer and antiparasitic drugs, and immunosuppressants. For the researchers from the Department of Molecular Microbiology, the Streptomyces bacteria are a very interesting model of experimentation also because of the way they grow and form spores, similar to simple fungi. The awarded article fits within the long-term study of the organisation of the Streptomyces linear chromosome, which is atypical for bacteria.
“Our article explains the organisation of the bacteria’s linear chromosomes. In the study, we applied a chromosome conformation capture (3C) method, which allows imaging of the spatial arrangement of DNA in the cell and has not been applied in Streptomyces before. This method, complemented by the cell biology tests, allowed us to track the process of the global chromosome structure change step-by-step and identify the key proteins involved in the process”, says prof. Jakimowicz.
“The results were surprising at first, since such global chromosome structure changes, preparing the DNA for synchronised segregation and compaction in spores, have not been described in bacteria before. In simple terms, they resemble the processes occurring in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells and therefore make Streptomyces similar to eukaryotic organisms. A question we would like to answer in the near future is how these processes are regulated by the cell”, adds dr Szafran.
The awarded article titled Spatial rearrangement of the Streptomyces venezuelae linear chromosome during sporogenic development was published in Nature Communications, a prestigious scientific journal. The article was written as a result of collaboration within the HARMONIA and OPUS projects led by dr Marcin Szafran and prof. dr hab. Dagmara Jakimowicz.
Prof. dr hab. Dagmara Jakimowicz has been working at the Department of Molecular Microbiology at the Faculty of Biotechnology since 2007. She completed a four-year academic internship at the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK), well-known for the study of Streptomyces genetics and biology. She manages the OPUS research project funded by the National Science Centre.
Dr Marcin Szafran is the assistant professor at the Department of Molecular Microbiology at the Faculty of Biotechnology. His academic career has been associated with the University of Wrocław. He completed internships at research facilities in Canada, France and the United Kingdom. He currently manages the SONATA research project funded by the National Science Centre.
Translated by Natalia Noworól (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
