Post-doctoral position project entitled 'Translation regulation during antibiotic biosyn

Recruitment Information

Organisation/Company:
Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences

Research Field:
Biological sciences

Position:
Postdoc (Recognised Researcher R2)

Country:
Poland

Final date to receive applications: 10 Jan 2026 (Europe/Warsaw)

Type of

Contract:

Temporary, Full‑time

Funding:
Not funded through the EU Research Framework Programme

Protein biosynthesis is a fundamental process in every living cell. Translation is performed by the ribosome and associated factors. Besides the set of conserved and essential translation factors including initiation, elongation and recycling factors, evolution selected for a range of proteins which can help preserve and sustain translational machinery during stress conditions including starvation, stationary phase or antibiotic stress. Regulation of gene expression at the translational level is a phenomenon that allows cells to react immediately in response to changing environmental conditions, compared to transcriptional regulation.

Control of protein synthesis therefore allows for a rapid response to a variety of environmental changes, allowing for a fast adaptation of cell growth. Such fast adaptation would manifest not in the transcriptome composition change – which takes relatively long time, but rather in the changed rate at which mRNA is engaged by the ribosome leading to altered translatome – protein levels.

Specialized translation factors are known to help protein biosynthesis machinery to respond to aberrations of bacterial growth conditions. Many factors involved in the response to non‑optimal growth conditions are well conserved within the bacterial kingdom. In addition, some bacteria carry genes encoding translation factors responding to antibiotic stress. A group of specialized translation factors – Ribosomal Protection Proteins (RPPs) – is known to aid uninterrupted translation when antibiotics targeting the ribosome are present.

The best known examples are TetM/TetO from Enterococcus faecalis – an ortholog of elongation factor EF‑G – which can dislodge tetracycline off the ribosome or FusB/FusC which bind to EF‑G trapped on the ribosome by the antibiotic fusidic acid and promote dissociation of EF‑G, thereby enabling translation to continue and conferring resistance to fusidic acid. Such factors belong to the group of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs).

The interest of my research group are translation factors responding to antibiotic stress. Curiously, my initial analyses of the genome of Myxococcus xanthus DK 1622 have revealed triplicate of the gene encoding elongation factor EF‑G (varying amino acid sequences). Interestingly, two of these genes are located adjacent to two distinct putative biosynthetic gene clusters encoding thiopeptides. Strikingly, class I of thiopeptide group of antibiotics (thiostrepton) targets translation by binding to the large ribosomal subunit spanning the N‑terminal domain of protein L11 to H43/44 leading to disturbance of the GTPase centre.

Subsequently, the action of initiation factor IF2, elongation factors EF‑G and EF‑Tu is inhibited. It is unknown whether paralogs of EF‑G identified here function as elongation factors and are indispensable for the general translation or rather act as ribosome protective proteins dislodging thiopeptide bound to the ribosome. In this project, we plan to (I) investigate the role of alternative elongation factors EF‑Gs in translation and (II) their possible interplay with thiopeptide antibiotics biosynthesis regulation, inhibitory action and resistance.

We will apply a combination of modern techniques and analyses, including in silico bioinformatical analyses of the genome, genes and proteins and next generation sequencing (NGS) including analyses of transcriptome (RNAseq) and translatome (Ribosome profiling – RIBOseq) to identify genes regulated by the action of the investigated factors. We will also determine when each of the genes encoding EF‑G is activated, while using targeted RIBOseq we will identify which mRNAs are translated with the assistance of each of the paralogue.

We will take advantage of the unique life style of M.…