# Physiological and Developmental Role of Bacterial Ser/Thr Kinases

> **NIH NIH R35** · NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $392,500

## Abstract

Project Summary
Bacteria employ signaling systems to sense and respond to their environment. This allows them to adjust their
cellular physiology and collective behavior in response to environmental cues. One subset of these systems
are the Hanks-type serine/threonine kinases and phosphatases. These signaling systems have been shown to
be critical, and even often essential, for bacterial physiology, including cell growth and division, antibiotic
tolerance and resistance, sporulation and germination, virulence, and biofilm formation. To accomplish this,
these systems can regulate cellular function through direct post-translational modification of enzymes, or
control transcription by adding an additional layer of regulation to the activity of transcription factors from other
pathways. As a result, the activity of Hanks-type Ser/Thr signaling systems remains poorly understood,
particularly at the single-cell level, where these systems are known to regulate the appearance of rare cells
with extreme phenotypes such as increased antibiotic resistance and bacterial virulence. The long-term goal of
my laboratory is to explore how these signaling systems regulate population and single-cell-level phenotypes
and thereby to understand their contribution to human health and disease. To do so, we will 1) perform a
mechanistic and quantitative study of conserved bacterial Hanks-type Ser/Thr kinase-phosphatase systems,
focused on understanding how their regulatory architecture enables the generation of rare cells in bacterial
populations with extreme phenotypes, 2) determine the role of these signaling systems in developmental
transitions such as competence, biofilm formation, and sporulation. Initially we will focus on these systems in
the model organism Bacillus subtilis, with the long-term goal to uncover the conserved features that can be
generalized to other, less genetically tractable, and clinically important bacteria.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10501586
- **Project number:** 1R35GM147429-01
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Elizabeth Libby
- **Activity code:** R35 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $392,500
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-08-01 → 2027-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10501586

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10501586, Physiological and Developmental Role of Bacterial Ser/Thr Kinases (1R35GM147429-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10501586. Licensed CC0.

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