Research focus

​Pseudomonads are g-proteobacteria able to thrive in many different environments. P. aeruginosa is a known nosocomial pathogen and a major cause of fatal lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients, where they can permanently colonize the lungs in the form of biofilms.

Our research focuses on the uptake of iron via siderophores in P. aeruginosa and P. fluorescens, and on the signal molecules needed for the formation of biofilms and the production of virulence factors (including siderophores).

Pyoverdines are high-affinity iron-siderophores of P. aeruginosa, and our aim is to obtain a better insight into the mechanisms of biosynthesis, uptake and utilization of these molecules. P. aeruginosa cells respond to cell density by a mechanism called quorum sensing, involving different signal molecules (N-acyl-homoserine lactones and quinolone derivatives).

Our group is now interested in an antibiotic efflux system, which seems to have a central role in the quorum sensing circuitry of this bacterium. We are also interested in a new type of siderophore, also a quinolone with antibiotic activity (and probably a signal molecule as well), and its biosynthetic pathway, which is a prokaryotic counterpart of the mammalian tryptophan-kynurenin-xanthurenic acid pathway.