Nutrient Regulation

Coordinating metabolism and growth is a key challenge for all organisms. Despite fluctuating environments, cells must produce the same metabolic outputs to thrive. The mechanisms underlying this “growth homeostasis” are well studied in bacteria and eukaryotes, but remain unexplored in archaea. Some halophiles are able to utilize glucose for energy, while others cannot. Our recent work suggests that a key transcription factor, TrmB, regulates enzyme-coding gene expression in response to nutrients across the metabolic network (Schmid et al., 2009; Todor et al., 2013 and 2014). This project aims to understand how transcriptional regulation by TrmB affects the dynamics and flux of carbon through the halophile metabolic network.