LEAPS-MPS: Structural and Biophysical Studies of Bacterial Copper Acquisition and Regulation

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). In this project, funded by the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate and housed in the Chemistry Division, Professor Oriana Fisher and her students at Lehigh University will study the behavior of copper ions in bacteria using a wide range of chemical and biochemical techniques.

The research will provide a detailed understanding of how bacteria process copper, and this will help lead to a better understanding of the chemistry of antibiotic resistance. Dr. Fisher’s plan to pilot a summer research program that will recruit students from groups underrepresented in science will broaden participation in chemistry at Lehigh and will provide long-term mentoring of a cohort of underrepresented minority students as they navigate the transition from undergraduate the graduate school.

Professor Fisher will biophysically and structurally elucidate proteins that orchestrate copper acquisition in Bacillus subtilis, with the aims of elucidating how Cu is recognized and chaperoned extracellularly and investigating the structural and biophysical basis for transcriptional control of the ycn operon, which may hold a key to understanding bacterial copper acquisition and regulation. While copper export proteins are highly conserved throughout evolution, copper importers in bacteria appear to be completely distinct from their eukaryotic counterparts. Previous studies have focused on this problem

primarily from a biological perspective; research under this award will provide new insight into a molecular level understanding of proteins that govern these processes.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.