SzSA YearBook 2016/17

SZENT-GYÖRGYI MENTORS
CSABA PÁL
Institute of Biochemistry,
Biological Research Center of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Address: Temesvári krt. 62., H-6726 Szeged, Hungary
E: cpal@brc.hu
T: +36 62/599-661
RESEARCH AREA
Evolution is central to our undestanding of the biological
world. We address some of the most central questions of
the field, for example: How can genes change their function
during evolution? Is most of the DNA junk? Why are
seemingly essential genes lost in certain species? What is
the role of transposable elements (“jumping genes”)? Is
large-scale engineering of the genome possible? Beyond
these basic research issues, we study the evolution of antibiotic
resistance in batceria. Here, we are keen to develop
novel therapeutic strategies.
For more details, see www.brc.hu/sysbiol/ and
http://group.szbk.u-szeged.hu/sysbiol/Papers/Termeszet_Vilaga_2010.pdf
TECHNIQUES AVAILABLE IN THE LAB
We study microbial evolution in real time under controlled
laboratory conditions, employ standard protocols of whole
genome sequence analyses, molecular genetics and bioinformatics.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Lazar, V., Pal Singh, G., Spohn, R., Nagy, I., Horváth, B., Hrtyan,
M., Busa-Fekete, R., Bogos, B,. Méhi, O., Csörgő, B.,
Pósfai, G, Fekete, G., Szappanos, B., Kégl B., Papp, B., Pál,
C. (2013) Bacterial evolution of antibiotic hypersensitivity.
Mol Sys Biol 9: 700.
Fehér, T., Bogos, B., Méhi, O., Fekete, G., Csörgő, B., Kovács,
K., Pósfai, G., Papp, B., Hurst, L.D., Pál, C. (2012) Competition
between Transposable Elements and Mutator Genes in Bacteria
Mol Biol Evol 29: 3153.
Papp, B., Notebaart, R.A., Pál, C. (2011) Systems-biology
approaches for predicting genomic evolution. Nature Rev
Genet 12: 591.
Pal, C., Macia, M., Oliver, A., Schacher, I., Buckling, A. (2007)
Coevolution with viruses drives the evolution of bacterial
mutation rates. Nature 450: 1079-81.
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