SzSA YearBook 2018/19

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
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 largescale
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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