How can cell wall engineering approaches be used to improve streptomycetes for industry to make new antibiotics?

This thesis describes the structural and biochemical characterization of the β-lactamase BlaC from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), and the Alr and YlmE proteins from Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2).Mtb is the main cause of tuberculosis.

Streptomycetes are similar to moulds, but these bacteria live in the soil. They are very popular in biotechnology because they produce a great many antibiotics and enzymes. Gilles van Wezel will be using his Vici subsidy to study ways of increasing their production.

The filamentous bacteria Streptomyces are widespread inhabitants of terrestrial soils.

Promotor: G.P. van Wezel

We aim to engineer streptomycetes to fully exploit their potential for natural product productions, by a rational design and evolution approach.

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel

We aim to unravel the complex and intertwining regulatory systems that control development and antibiotic production in streptomycetes.

We aim to provide new insights relating to the spectacular multi-cellular life cycle of streptomycetes and other actinobacteria.

Can a new proteomics workflow be developed to link genes and gene clusters to bioactive molecules, identify novel compounds and enhance the production in the Streptomyces lividans enzyme?

Promotor: G.P. van Wezel, Co-promotor: D. Claessen

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel, Co-Promotor: E. Vijgenboom

The CMCB comprises research groups from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC).

Plants are colonized by an astounding number of microorganisms that can provide different life-support functions, including nutrient acquisition and protection against (a)biotic stresses like drought or pathogen attack.

A team of researchers at the Institute of Biology Leiden, in collaboration with scientists from Utrecht University, has discovered a novel approach to improve the production of antibiotics and enzymes in the soil bacteria Streptomycetes.

After four years of hard work, the time has finally come: your thesis is finished. But who of your family and friends will ever read it? Biologist Lizah van der Aart decided to make a magazine for layman. 'It was precisely the explanation of the difficult, fundamental parts that gave me good tools for…

To facilitate the search for new antibiotics. That is the aim of Gilles van Wezel, professor molecular biotechnology at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). He wants to do this by looking at similarities in the DNA of antibiotic-producing bacteria. Van Wezel has been awarded an ERC Advanced grant…

Bacteria found in soil specialise in the colony by division of labour. Some of the bacteria produce antibiotics, even when it comes at the expense of their individual reproduction success, to defend their colony against competitors. Publication in Science Advances.

PhD student Doris van Bergeijk brought 40,000-year-old bacteria from mammoth poop back to life. She hopes to find new information that can help research at the Institute of Biology Leiden into antibiotics and antibiotics resistance. Read about it on European Antibiotic Awareness Day, 18 November.

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Bacteria use antibiotics as a weapon and even produce more antibiotics if there are competing strains nearby. This is a fundamental insight that can help find new antibiotics. Leiden scientists Daniel Rozen and Gilles van Wezel published their research results in the authoritative Proceedings of the…

A bacterium hiding from the immune system and picking up bits of DNA from its environment. The result: gaining new traits, such as better protection against antibiotics. Fortunately, we have not found such a damning scenario yet. However, PhD student Renée Kapteijn did find the first clues, which…

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