« Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are »
This is not only a proverbial sentence, but also the best way to start looking at the host bacteria interactions. Attenuated mutants are often metabolic mutants and crucial regulators of virulence genes expression also appears to regulate carbon and nitrogen metabolism.
Based on the knowledge we have on key global regulators of Brucella spp., on the availability of several Brucellagenomes and on a strong collaborative network, our group starts to characterize the the central metabolic network ofBrucella, the nature of its prefered carbon sources and how this network responds to genetic and environmental perturbations. The ultimate goal being the identification of the substrate(s) used by Brucella within their host.
