BMB843: Molecular Biology and Genetics of Bacteria

This course has limited participation of maximum 20 students. In the event of too many applications, priority will be given based on time of registration.

This course can only be taken by students enrolled in the MSc degree programs of Biomedicine, BMB, Biology or Computational Biomedicine.

Students taking the course are expected to:

• Have knowledge of the curriculum of courses BMB507 (Fundamental Microbiology), BMB543 (Biomedical Microbiology) and BMB533 (Molecular Biology and Protein Chemistry)
• Be able to carry out laboratory experiments in molecular biology and microbiology
• Be sufficiently fluent in English to write reports and give seminar presentations

The aim of the course is to develop the students’ knowledge of advanced molecular microbiology focusing on the fundamental regulatory mechanisms controlling bacterial cell division, developmental processes, responses to external stress and interactions with bacteriophages. The theoretical part of the course will focus on the concepts and methodological approaches via presentation and evaluation of published research articles on bacterial molecular biology and genetics, while the experimental part of the course will give the students experience in designing and executing experimental strategies for answering a self-defined molecular microbiology research question. 

The course builds on the knowledge acquired in BMB507 and BMB543 and gives an academic basis for successful execution of a MSc thesis project in molecular microbiology, or eventual further postgraduate study.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

• Give the competence to critically evaluate peer reviewed molecular microbiology research data
• Give the competence to formulate a hypothesis regarding a self-designed research question, design and execute experiments to answer it, and critically evaluate the results
• Give skills to carry out advanced molecular microbiology experimental work
• Give the competence to coherently present scientific data orally and in writing

The learning objective of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• describe the different strategies used by bacteria to accomplish cell division by symmetric or asymmetric binary fission
• describe the contributions of signalling mechanisms such as two-component systems, second-messenger concentrations, quorum sensing and small non-coding RNAs to bacterial developmental processes or stress responses
• describe how bacteriophages infect bacteria and how bacteria defend themselves against them
• understand how next-generation sequencing methods are used to investigate direct or indirect bacterial gene regulation or the contribution of genes to bacterial fitness
• design, carry out and interpret molecular microbiology experiments
• evaluate their own and others’ experimental data in the context of state-of-the-art knowledge in the field

The following main topics are contained in the course:

• Molecular-level regulation of bacterial cell division stages, including chromosome replication, segregation and cell separation
• Bacterial developmental processes: sporulation, biofilm development and asymmetric division
• Bacterial stress responses, including DNA damage, starvation, and response to attack by other micro-organisms
• Interactions with bacteriophages: types of bacteriophage infection cycles, influence of prophages on bacterial phenotypes, defence mechanisms employed by bacteria against bacteriophages

The literature for this course will consist of review articles for background and context, original research articles for presentations and various other materials for writing and oral presentation guides and lab protocols. All literature will be made available via itslearning.

At the faculty of science, teaching is organized after the three-phase model of intro, training and study phases.

• Intro phase: consists of 10 hours of lectures, to provide an introduction to the themes of the course and link from the undergraduate microbiology courses BMB507 and BMB543 to the more advanced content of the research articles in the pensum
• Training phase: divided between tutorials consisting of 40 hours of critical analysis and presentation of research articles, and 30 hours of laboratory work (spread over 3 weeks). Each tutorial hour will involve presentation of one research article, followed by questions and discussion led by a group of students designated as the evaluation panel for that article. Designation of presenters and evaluation panels for the articles will be done at the beginning of the semester, once the final participant list for the course is established.

• Prepare for lectures by reading review articles
  
• Prepare for tutorials by reading research articles from the pensum
  
• Prepare and give Powerpoint (or similar) seminar presentations of research articles
• Read and prepare questions for articles that will be presented by other students, when assigned to evaluation panel for those articles
• Carry out laboratory work and write a Short Communication-format report on the results
• Write the final report

Transitional arrangements describe how a course replaces another course when changes are made to the course of study.