Cyanobacteria represent a diverse group of prokaryotes endowed with the ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions, which has allowed them to colonize a wide range of ecosystems. We are interested in investigating the regulatory and adaptive mechanisms of the cyanobacterial metabolism at the molecular level.
Glycogen is a sugar reserve polymer that plays a crucial role in survival to an ever-changing environment. It is synthesized and accumulated inside the cells under growth-limiting conditions at excess of a carbon source, and degraded when the supply of energy or carbon is not enough to maintain growth or viability, thus allowing cell survival in transient starvation conditions. Our projects focus on investigating how post-translational modifications regulate the activity of enzymes involved in carbon metabolism to allow rapid changes to cope with environmental dynamism.