Research context

Type I Toxin-Antitoxin systems (T1TA) are self-death inducing systems expressed by bacteria consisting of two genes: a stable toxin and an unstable antitoxin that neutralizes the action of the toxin. In these systems, the RNA antitoxin is able to activate the degradation and/or to inhibit the translation of the toxin mRNA. Specific structural features of the toxin mRNA were recently described allowing a tight regulation of the toxin expression. T1TAs are involved in bacterial phage defense, persistence, and maintenance of mobile genetic elements.

T1TAdb is a database of all described and predicted loci of type I Toxin-Antitoxin systems. This database provides sequence, secondary structure, and genomic information on T1TA loci. It currently contains 1894 Toxin-Antitoxin loci from 493 bacterial strains and 25 TA families.

Tasks

• Scanning bacterial genomes to identify T1TA homologs
• Analyze the distribution/localization of T1TA in bacteria

Work environment

The work will be carried out in the ARNA Laboratory “Nucleic acids: Natural and artificial regulation” (Inserm U1212, CNRS UMR 5320, University of Bordeaux, France) between January and December 2022. ARNA is an interdisciplinary unit gathering around 120 chemists, biologists, and biophysicists studying nucleic acids. The bioinformatician will join the BacRB team, focusing on the regulation of type I toxin-antitoxin systems in bacterial pathogens. More information about the ARNA lab can be found at https://arna.cnrs.fr/ and https://lerhun.u-bordeaux.fr/

Work location

ARNA laboratory, 146 Rue Léo Saignat, 33076 Bordeaux, France.