Understanding of chromatin organization and compaction in Archaea is currently limited. The genome of several megabasepairs long is folded by a set of small chromatin proteins to fit into the... Show moreUnderstanding of chromatin organization and compaction in Archaea is currently limited. The genome of several megabasepairs long is folded by a set of small chromatin proteins to fit into the micron-sized cell. A first step in understanding archaeal chromatin organization is to study the action of individual chromatin proteins on DNA. Characterization of the architectural properties of these proteins is essential to understand how they shape and modulate the archaeal genome. This thesis describes the biophysical characterization of several chromatin proteins from the crenarchaeal model organism Sulfolobus solfataricus: Cren7, Sul7, Alba and Sso10a. The architectural properties of these proteins resemble those of their bacterial counterparts, suggesting that they could play a similar role in chromatin organization and global gene regulation. Show less
Using newly developed single cell A3243G mutation load assays a novel mechanism of mtDNA segregation was identified in which the multi-copy mtDNA nucleoid takes a central position. Furthermore,... Show moreUsing newly developed single cell A3243G mutation load assays a novel mechanism of mtDNA segregation was identified in which the multi-copy mtDNA nucleoid takes a central position. Furthermore, likely due to low level changes in gene expression, no genes or gene sets could be identified with gene wide expression analysis that would hint to the molecular pathways that are altered upon loss of mitochondrial ATP production as a consequence of A3243G mtDNA mutation. Extensive post-transcriptional adaptation in the form of global translation repression, was however apparent. A comparison between two mtDNA haplotypes indicated, that these presumably neutral sequence variants can affect the nuclear expression program, which tentatively indicates that mtDNA haplotype can affect phenotype. Show less
