Bacterial regulation,
Coordinator: Mark Goulian (Penn)

     Bacteria employ a remarkable array of complex regulatory networks in order to sense and respond to their  intra-and extra cellular environment. These networks monitor and process signals in order to control diverse responses such as metabolic switches, organelle biogenesis, structural modifications, developmental transformations, cell-cycle control, and alternative growth phases.  Progress in our understanding of and ability to manipulate these networks will have an enormous impact on a wide range of subjects ranging from microbial pathogenesis to ecology and biotechnology. In addition, the concepts and tools that emerge from experimental and theoretical work on bacterial regulatory networks are likely to be broadly applicable outside prokaryotic biology.

     What are the various types of  “computations” performed by bacterial regulatory circuits? Common schemes and mechanisms? How do complex regulatory circuits operate in the relatively noisy environment within the cell? How is the specificity maintained and to what extent is the inter-circuit cross-talk a liability or an asset (enabling more complex regulatory linkages or making the whole system more ‘evolvable’)?  As has been the case for so many other subjects within molecular biology, the examples provided by bacteria promise to play a significant role in defining many of the fundamental questions and establishing many of the basic principals governing biochemical regulatory networks.