Please note that these pages are currently undergoing revision / updating, and therefore not all pages to be linked from this and subsequent pages are complete. 28th January 2006.
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The Bacterial Pathogenesis and Functional Genomics Group (BPFG).
Established in 2000, the BPFG is headed by Dr Nigel J Saunders.
Contact information:
email: Nigel.Saunders@path.ox.ac.uk
postal address: The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, United Kingdom, OX1 3RE
telephone: 01865 275521 (office); 01865 275520 (lab)
FAX: 01865 275520:
What we do, and why we do it.
Our main interests are directed towards the understanding and prevention of bacterial infection. We are also interested in functional genomics / systems biology of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems. So, while much of our effort and interest in the use of functional genomics as an experimental approach to solving our infection-related questions, they are not limited to this area of work.
Work in the group is not focused upon a single methodological approach to our
problems, and is not focused upon a single aspect of these organisms biology.
This is because we believe that an understanding of these organisms, sufficient
to combat them therapeutically, is unlikely to be achieved by too narrow an
approach. We therefore embrace whatever methods are needed to address our
questions, and where these lie outside our areas of expertise we will either
bring new methods in, or collaborate with others to achieve our goals. Further,
complete bacterial genomes offer not only a renewed source of starting
information from which to address these organisms from a whole-system
perspective, but also provide a framework to integrate existing data and
prioritize the best potential therapeutic targets.
Having said that our motives are the important human diseases associated with
these pathogens, and ultimately in improved therapeutic interventions, we do not
believe that an overly blinkered view of these objectives is the most likely to
succeed. The days of the serendipitous discovery of non-toxic and
pharmacologically useful antibiotics is largely over, as evidenced by the
failure of traditional large-scale screening approaches in recent years.
Similarly, a direct search for vaccine candidates is prone to identify antigenic
surface-available that have been under evolutionary pressure to be either masked
or variable, within or between strains. It is possible that a direct approach
will be fortunate enough to find new good candidates, but when such approaches
fail they do not take us very much further forwards with respect to the real
problem. Therefore a serious a new level of understanding of these organisms and
how they work is needed, to form the basis of rational drug design and vaccine
candidate selection. Potentially therapeutically useful insights are thus built
on foundations of studies of fundamental aspects of these organisms biology.
Selected recent publications:
Defects in lamin B1 expression or processing affect interphase chromosome position and gene expression. Ashraf Malhas, Chiu Fan Lee, Rebecca Sanders, Nigel J Saunders and David J Vaux. Journal of Cell Biology 176: 581-592.(2007)
Meningococcal genetic variation mechanisms viewed through comparative analysis of serogroup C strain FAM18. Stephen D Bentley, George S Vernikos, Lori AS Snyder, Carol Churcher, Claire Arrowsmith, Tracey Chillingworth, Ann Cronin, Paul H Davis, Nancy E Holroyd, Kay Jagels, Mark Maddison, Sharon Moule, Ester Rabbinowitsch, Sarah Sharp, Louise Unwin, Sally Whitehead, Michael A Quail, Mark Achtman, Bart Barrell, Nigel J Saunders, and Julian Parkhill. PLoS Genetics 2: e23 (2007).
The small FNR regulon of Neisseria gonorrhoeae: comparison with the larger E. coli FNR regulon and interaction with the NarQ-NarP regulon. Rebekah Whitehead, Tim W Overton, Lori AS Snyder, Harry Smith, Jeff A Cole and Nigel J Saunders. BMC Genomics 8: 35. (2007)
Coordinated regulation of the Neisseria gonorrhoeae truncated denitrification pathway by the nitric oxide-sensitive repressor, NsrR, and nitrite-insensitive NarQ-NarP. Tim W Overton, Rebekah Whitehead, Ying Li, Lori AS Snyder, Nigel J Saunders, Harry Smith, and Jeff Cole. Journal of Biological Chemistry 281: 33115-33126. (2006)
Comparison of the RpoH-dependent regulon and general stress response in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Ishara C Gunesekere, Charlene M Kahler, Deiter Bulach, Lori AS Snyder, Nigel J Saunders, Julian I Rood and John K Davies. Journal of Bacteriology 188: 4769-4776. (2006)
The majority of genes in the pathogenic Neisseria species are present in the non-pathogenic Neisseria lactamica, including those designated as ‘virulence genes’. Lori AS Snyder and Nigel J Saunders. BMC Genomics 7: 128. (2006)
Ecf, an alternative sigma factor from Neisseria gonorrhoeae controls expression of msrA/B, which encodes Methionine sulfoxide reductase. Ishara C Gunesekere, Charlene M Kahler, Catherine S Ryan, Lori AS Snyder, Nigel J Saunders, Julian I Rood and John K Davies. Journal of Bacteriology 188: 3463-3469. (2006)
A full list of Dr Saunders's academic publications can be seen here.
Our primary approaches centre around functional genomics and systems biology.
Our main ongoing research can be divided into the following areas:
A brief introduction to two types of gene regulation / control
Phase variation (generally, in Neisseria, and in H. pylori)
Programmed regulation (mostly in Neisseria)
Bioinformatics-based approaches to understanding bacteria
Microarrays (for lots of things - follow this link for information of microarrays collaboratively available from us)
Comparative genomics and population biology
Information for Undergraduate Students
Group members: Past and Present