Many biological functions rely upon several protein partners interacting in permanent or sporadic supramolecular assemblies, referred to as integrated systems. The team interest concerns the identification, reconstruction and analyses of these assemblies in completely sequenced bacterial genomes through the development of bioinformatic strategies. Among them, the integrated systems encoded by large families of paralogous genes and involved in the exchange of the bacterial cell with its environment, are of prior interest. Indeed, the genomic comparative analysis of their repertories will help to understand the molecular mechanisms that are involved in the adaptation processes of bacterial genomes. Our first studies focused on the family of ABC transporters. Most of them mediate the active uptake or efflux of specific molecules across biological membranes, handling a wide variety of compounds. This work lead to the design of a specialized public database (ABCdb). The developed bioinformatic strategies are now generalized to other systems, such as two component systems involved in detection and transduction of specific signals that elicit adaptative responses of the bacterial cell.
Beside the comparative genomic approach, the team is also working on the modelling of those systems by taking into account
the physical, functional and evolutionary relationships occurring between the different partners. In this context, we develop a knowledge base under AROM which integrates, in the same local environment, methods and data.

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Reconstruction of biological integrated systems : an application to bacterial transport systems
ABCdb : une base de données sur les ABC transporteurs