microLife Poster Prize: Sophie Tronnet
We send our congratulations to Sophie Tronnet, who won a poster prize at the FEMS Conference on Microbiology. This award is sponsored by our journal microLife.
The FEMS Conference on Microbiology (#FCOM22) took place on the 30th June until the 2nd July in Belgrade, Serbia. With 450 posters on display the microLife editorial board selected Sophie’s poster as the best poster.
Read our interview with Sophie about her research below:
What is your current position, and what was your scientific journey to get there?
I am currently working as a postdoc at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (Umeå, Sweden) in the group of Andrea Puhar. I defended my PhD in 2017 in Toulouse (France), where I was working on the regulation of a bacterial genotoxin called colibactin. I have always been passionate about host-bacteria interactions. I moved Sweden to work on the regulation of gut bacteria by the danger associated signal extracellular ATP (eATP).”
Could you describe the research your poster covered?
While in animal and plant cells extracellular ATP (eATP) functions as a signalling molecule, whether bacteria can sense and respond to eATP was unknown. We used a systems biology approach to show that the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli responds to eATP at physiologically relevant concentrations by modifying its transcriptional and metabolic landscapes. We also tested the ability of other gut bacteria including pathogenic bacteria to respond to eATP, and they were able to sense and respond to eATP.”
What do you hope to focus your research on in the future?
In the future, I would like to keep working on discovering and studying molecules mediating inter-kingdom communication between the gut microbiota and their host. I find the chemical language between different kingdoms (or species) fascinating!”
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