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Jon Hobman

Associate Professor of Microbiology, Faculty of Science

Contact

  • workRoom B22 Food Sciences
    Sutton Bonington Campus
    Sutton Bonington
    Leicestershire
    LE12 5RD
    UK
  • work0115 951 6166
  • fax0115 951 6162

Research Summary

My research interests are centred on how bacteria respond to, and the cellular systems they have to cope with, different stresses and changes in external environmental conditions. We are addressing… read more

Selected Publications

Current Research

My research interests are centred on how bacteria respond to, and the cellular systems they have to cope with, different stresses and changes in external environmental conditions. We are addressing how these systems work through studies on gene regulation and control of gene expression. This is important to understanding how bacteria survive in adverse or hostile conditions, and outside of the normal mammalian host in the case of enteric bacteria. Allied to this is an interest in understanding how old and new antimicrobial treatments kill bacteria.

Within the general area of microbial stress, I am particularly interested in how bacteria respond to different metal-ion stresses. These stresses appear to have widespread effects on the cell, and can be caused by either excessive or insufficient amounts of essential metal ions or by the presence of toxic metal ions in the bacterial cell. Microarray experiments we have published show that excess levels of even essential metals such as copper result in the switching on of genes involved in metal ion homeostasis, oxidative stress responses, membrane stress responses, amino acid synthesis, and increased gene expression of metal ion import systems for different metals to the one in excess. Bacteria have evolved metal-ion specific transcriptional regulators which sense intracellular metal-ion levels and switch on genes involved in removing or detoxifying these metals, or switch off genes that import metals. We are particularly interested in understanding how regulators from the MerR and FUR families sense the metal-ion or other cognate chemical species within the cell that they sense and how they regulate transcription of genes involved in the cellular response.

We are using comparative functional genomics and molecular microbiology techniques (bioinformatics, gene knockout technology, epitope tagging, reporter gene fusions, site directed mutagenesis, microarray transcriptomics, and chIP on chip) to study gene regulation and to analyse differences in responses to stress between laboratory and pathogenic Escherichia coli strains. As part of this I am involved in technology platform development, working on increasing the resolution and developing new uses for post-genomic technologies.

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Media summary: Bacterial gene expression, metals, Escherichia coli, transcriptomics, microarrays

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Future Research

Transcriptomics, chIP-on chip, pathogenic E. coli, metals as antimicrobial agents, metal ion resistance and homeostasis systems

School of Biosciences

University of Nottingham
Sutton Bonington Campus
Loughborough, Leicestershire LE12 5RD

telephone: +44 (0)115 9516400
fax: +44 (0) 115 951 6020
email: biosciences-enquiries@nottingham.ac.uk