Denis JALLET

My work focuses not only on characterizing but also domesticating diverse types of bacterial microcompartments (BMCs). BMCs are self-assembling protein mega-complexes that encapsulate entire metabolic pathways in cellula, hence sequestering toxic (or volatile) metabolic intermediates and increasing pathway efficiency. Many questions remain unanswered as to how BMCs function. To answer these questions, I implement a multidisciplinary approach combining microbiology (growth phenotyping, fluorescence microscopy, electron microscopy, …), synthetic biology (high-throughput cloning, genome editing, …), biochemistry (BMC purification, enzyme assays, …) as well as fluxomics (¹H-NMR, stochiometric models, isotopic models, …) aspects. The generated knowledge has both fundamental and applied impacts: by understanding how BMCs natively work, we will be able to turn them into intracellular nanoreactors for biotechnological purposes.

I focus on three main research topics at the moment:

– Studying the native ethanolamine utilization BMC of Escherichia coli and its metabolic function in commensal isolates (ColiMATTERS project).

– Producing heterologous propanediol utilization BMCs in E. coli and exploiting their metabolic versatility (PDU project).

– Harnessing the power of recombinant Pdu BMCs in E. coli to turn them into C1 compounds assimilation powerhouses (METHYLO project).