Prof. Dipti Nayak, UC Berkeley

Dipti Nayak from the University of California, Berkeley, United States, will give a talk:

An emerging view of the regulatory landscape in methanogenic archaea

“Archaeal transcription is a hybrid of eukaryotic and bacterial features: a RNAP II-like polymerase transcribes genes organized in circular chromosomes within cells devoid of a nucleus. Consequently, archaeal genomes are depleted in canonical transcription factors (TFs) found in other domains of life. In this talk I will outline the discovery of a cryptic archaea-specific family of ligand-binding TFs, called AmzR (Archaeal Metabolite-sensing Zipper-like Regulators). We identify AmzR using an evolution-based genetic screen and show that it is a repressor of methanogenic growth on methylamines in the archaeon, Methanosarcina acetivorans. AmzR binds its target promoters as an oligomer using paired basic α-helices akin to eukaryotic leucine zippers. AmzR also binds methylamines, which reduces its DNA-binding affinity, and allows it to function as a one-component system commonly found in prokaryotes, while containing a eukaryotic-like DNA-binding motif. The AmzR family of TFs are widespread in archaea and broadens the scope of innovations at the prokaryote-eukaryote interface.”

Host

Prof. Schmitz-Streit