UW-Madison Dept of Bacteriology
Gary P. Roberts
Professor of Bacteriology
5155 Microbial Sciences Building
1550 Linden Drive
(608) 262-3567
groberts@bact.wisc.edu
Research Focus
Our laboratory studies two different regulatory processes that are both involved in the central metabolism of the bacterium Rhodospirillum rubrum. The first project concerns CO-sensing proteins, which include CooA and RcoM. In each case, we study the mechanism by which the signal of CO binding is transmitted through the protein to effect transcriptional activation of genes whose products are involved in the oxidation of CO. The second project involves PII, one of the most broadly distributed regulatory proteins in nature. Here we ask how different small molecules, such as alpha-ketoglutarate and ATP/ADP affect the regulatory properties of PII.