Structure and dynamics of bacterial chemotaxis signalling array by cryoEM

Bacterial chemotaxis response is crucial for colonization and infection, and the signal transduction systems that mediate such responses are potential new targets for antimicrobial drug development. Such system has emerged as a paradigm for understanding the principles of intracellular signal transduction both in bacterial and eukaryotic cells. In bacterial cells, hundreds of basic core signalling units consisting of three essential components, the chemoreceptors, the histidine kinase and the adaptor protein, assemble into a two-dimensional lattice array which allows cells to amplify and integrate many varied and possibly conflicting signals to locate optimal growing conditions. We aim to determine the structure and dynamics of the chemotaxis signalling arrays using state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy and tomography. We will take both in vitro and in situ structural approaches and combined with large-scale all atom molecular dynamic simulations. The ultimate goal is to assemble a time-resolved molecular movie of the entire signalling pathway in bacterial chemotaxis at an atomic level.