Research Abstract:
The central approach in most of the biological sciences during the last half of the twentieth century has been based on reductionism, and has resulted in a massive increase in our knowledge of individual cellular components. However, we have also realized that while we know how the individual "nuts and bolts" function in isolation, our understanding of how these components interact with each other to define the cellular, organismal, and population level behaviors of living beings has remained far less sophisticated. A "Systems Biology" approach should provide enabling technologies to examine complex biological processes, which should in turn result in an integrated and predictive understanding of how an organism behaves and responds to environmental changes. The successful implementation of a systems approach requires collaborative interactions between biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians and model builders, engineers, physicists, chemists, and perhaps specialists in other disciplines.
The goal of this project is to use systems biology approaches to determine the underlying network' that governs photosynthetic processes in cyanobacteria, vascular plants (Arabidopsis) and mosses. In photosynthetic organisms, the cellular components are always in flux, and molecular machines assemble, function and disassemble as a function of time and environmental alterations such as light intensity and nutrient availability. It is imperative to utilize a systems biology approach and integrate temporal information form microarray and proteomic studies into a predictive, dynamic model to understand the functioning of a photosynthetic organism. We have recently initiated two large scale, multi-institutional, systems biology projects (NSF-FIBR and PNNL Grand Challenge).
LAB WEBSITE: http://www.sysbio.wustl.edu/pakrasi/
Selected Publications:
Welsh, E. A., Liberton, M., Stöckel, J., Loh, T., Elvitigala, T., Wang, C. Wollam, A., Fulton, R. S., Clifton, S. W., Jacobs, J. M., Aurora, R., Ghosh, B. K., Sherman, L. A., Smith, R. D., Wilson, R. K. and Pakrasi, H. B. (2008) The genome of Cyanothece 51142, a unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacterium important in the marine nitrogen cycle. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105: 15094-15099.
Wegener, K. M., Welsh, E. A., Thornton, L. E., Jacobs, J. M., Hixson, K. K., Monroe, M. E., Camp II, D. G., Smith, R. D. and Pakrasi, H. B. (2008) High sensitivity proteomics assisted discovery of a novel operon involved in the assembly of photosystem II, a membrane protein complex. J. Biol. Chem., 283: 27829-27833.
Stöckel, J., Welsh, E. A., Liberton, M., Kunnavakkan R., Aurora, R. and Pakrasi, H. B. (2008) Global transcriptomic analysis of Cyanothece 51142 reveals robust diurnal oscillation of central metabolic processes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105: 6156-6161.
Singh, A. K., Bhattacharyya-Pakrasi, M. and Pakrasi, H. B. (2008) An Unusual Membrane-bound Dsb-like Fusion Protein Involved in Protein Disulfide Bond Formation in Oxygenic Photosynthetic Organisms. J. Biol. Chem., 283: 15762-15770.
Roose, J. L., Kashino, Y. and Pakrasi, H. B. (2007) The PsbQ Protein Defines Cyanobacterial Photosystem II Complexes with Highest Activity and Stability. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 2548-2553.
Last Updated: 12/09/2008 |