The UMB Nitrogen Group explores the regulatory biology and ecology of denitrifying prokaryotes and related functional groups.
Our environmental rationale is that we need to improve our understanding of the biological and ecological control of the emissions of NO and N2O from biosphere to atmosphere. The ultimate scientific goal is to “bridge” from genotype to phenotype, both for single strains and microbial assemblages (communities).
Regulation and phenotype We focus on the phenotypes of denitrifying bacteria with special emphasis on their translatoric and post translatoric regulation of the various enzymes involved in nitrogen redox reactions. These studies include paradigm strains (such as Paracoccus denitrificans) and suitable mutants, as well as prokaryotes isolated from environmental samples.
Communities We also work along the same lines with microbial assemblages (communities) from environmental samples, identifying their patterns of response to environmental parameters (i.e. community phenotyping) as well as their genetic makeup (genotyping).
Contrasts We have found that denitrifying bacteria are profoundly different in their ability to perform a balanced transition from oxic to anoxic conditions, their emission of toxic intermediates (NO2- and NO), as well as their emission of the greenhouse gas N2O. Robotized incubation systems have allowed us to explore these characteristic response patterns with high resolution and with high throughput. We have found similar contrasts between microbial assemblages (communities) from soils.
