Société Française de Bioinformatique

Mots-Clés

linux python microbiology toxin-antitoxin

Description

Research context
Most bacteria encode multiple toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems. The expression of the toxic protein in absence of the antitoxin leads to the bacterial host death. Our team is interested in the study of type I TA systems (T1TA), where the antitoxin is an RNA that base-pairs with the mRNA of the toxin, inhibiting translation. The broad distribution of these systems among pathogenic bacteria together with their ability to cause bacterial death makes T1AT great candidates for the development of new antibiotics. Understanding their regulation and mechanism of action is crucial for exploiting them as a new source of antimicrobials.
We recently studied the diversity, toxicity, distribution and genomic localization of the Hok toxin, demonstrated the enrichement of this system in prophages and large conjugative plasmids.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.668861v1

Tasks
• Analyzing the distribution/localization of T1TA in bacteria to understand their function and mode of action

Skills
• Familiarized with command-line Linux
• Programming with Python
• Producing and maintaining reliable, reproducible, and documented work

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). 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/