6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 105
6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work has been performed at the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology of the Martin-
Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. I am sincerely grateful, that it was given me an
opportunity to be a part of the atmosphere of knowledge, collaboration, encouragement and
friendship.
First of all, I want to express my enormous gratitude to my supervisors, Prof. Rainer Rudolph and
Dr. Peter Neubauer, for permitting me to do this research work, for providing such a wonderful
research environment, and for guiding me with their deep knowledge in modern biotechnology.
Especially, to Dr. Peter Neubauer, for helpful suggestion and discussion, for having the time to read
and revise this thesis step by step, for the experimental analysis to determine the replication,
transcription, and translation rates.
Dr. Sylke Meyer, for some ppGpp analysis; Antje Teich, for some plasmid- and σ S -quantification of
E. coli RB791 pKK177glucC; Stephan Riemschneider, for the S8-protein analysis; and all members
of the fermentation group, for the cooperation and useful discussion.
Uta Best, for the excellent technical assistance; Silke Nicklisch, for the LexA-protein analysis.
Jeannette Winter, Antje Breitenstein and Dr. Vlada Khalameyzer, for their critical reading of this
thesis.
Dr. Elisabeth Schwarz, Dr. Gerald Böhn and Dr. Hauke Lilie, for their advice and a wide scope of
knowledge.
Ulla Grauschopf, Constanze Franz, Sabine Meyenburg, Uli Schmidt, and all of our institute for
helping me to work in the area of molecular biology etc. ...
Prof. Michael Hecker, Dr. Thomas Schweder, Britta Jürgen from the Institute of Microbiology at the
University of Greifswald, for the continuous cooperation, the mutant strains, and the analysis of
mRNA and 2D-eletrophoresis. Dr. R. Hanschke, for the analysis of cell samples with transmission
electron microscopy.
Also, I would like to thank the people, who worked for the same EC project and performed those
large-scale experiments. They are: Prof. S.-O. Enfors, Prof. L. Fuchs, Prof. G. Hamer, Prof. M.
Hecker, Prof. B. Hjertager, Dr. S. Hjorth, Ir. F. W. J. M. M. Hoek, Prof. K. Luyben, Dr. Å.
Manelius, Prof. A. Nienow, Prof. M. Reuss, Dr. H. Skogman, Prof. C. Trägardh, Dr. R. von der

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 106
Lans, Dr. T. Schweder, G. Blomsten, L. Boon, Dr. P. C. Friberg, Dr. C. Hewitt, S. Hjoort, M.
Jahic, B. Jürgen, T. Kovacs, Dr. E. Krüger, Dr. N. Noisommit-Rizzi, Dr. D. O’Beirne, A. Rozkov,
F. Studer, F. van der Schot, Dr. P. Vrabel, and Dr. B. Xu. The group of G. Larsson (KTH,
Stockholm), for performing the fed-batch cultivations of MC4100 relA + .
Furthermore, E. Kopetzki, U. Brinkmann, R. Müller and Roche Diagnostics (Werk Penzberg,
Germany) for the plasmids (pKK177glucC, pUBS520, pDSCrimi), the E. coli Stock Center (New
Haven, USA) for the strains E. coli RB791 and W3110. Especially, I thank Prof. R. Hengge-Aronis
(Humboldt Univ. Berlin, Germany) for the generous gift of σ S antibodies, Prof. Iohihama (Mishima,
Japan) for the σ 70 antibodies, Prof. E. Bremer (Univ. Marburg, Germany) for H-NS antibodies and
control strains MC4100 (hns + ) and PD32 (hns − ), Prof. J. W. Roberts (Univ. Cornell, Ithaca,
U.S.A.) for LexA antibodies and Dr. Brimacombe (Univ. Berlin, Germany) for S8 polyclonal
antibodies and the ribosome standard.
This work was financially supported by the Biotechnology program of the European Community
(Projects No: BIO4-CT95-0028, BIO4-CT98-0167), a grant from Sachsen-Anhalt for the period
from April 1996 to March 1998 and a grant from the Hanns-Seidel-Foundation for the period from
September 1995 to February 1996.
Finally, very special thanks to my husband Tao Liu and my daughter Su Liu for their encouragement,
support and love.