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Umeå University
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Staff photo Gemma Atkinson

Gemma Atkinson

Assistant professor who studies the functional evolution of proteins that interact with the ribosome, and that are involved in antibiotic resistance and response to stress.

Contact

E-mail
gemma.atkinson@umu.se
Phone
+46 70 607 03 15

Works at

Affiliation
Affiliated as other position at Department of Molecular Biology Units: Group Gemma Atkinson
Location
6K och 6L, Sjukhusområdet Umeå universitet, 901 87 Umeå

The focus of our research is the evolution of protein function and structure. We’re interested in how evolutionary analyses can be combined with experimental research to reconstruct functional evolution of proteins, and to generate testable hypotheses about unknown aspects of protein function.

Ongoing projects in the group:

  • Evolution and function of ABCF translation and antibiotic resistance factors in eukaryotes and bacteria
  • Functional diversity of small alarmone (ppGpp) synthetases in bacteria and bacteriophages
  • Analysis of ribosome profiling data to elucidate the in vivo role of yeast translation factors
  • Prediction and verification of novel toxin-antitoxin systems
  • Development of bioinformatics tools for comparative evolutionary sequence analysis

Please visit our website for more information about my research group and ongoing projects: https://atkinson-lab.com

Structural basis of ABCF-mediated resistance to pleuromutilin, lincosamide, and streptogramin A antibiotics in Gram-positive pathogens
Nature Communications, Springer Nature 2021, Vol. 12, (1)
Crowe-McAuliffe, Caillan; Murina, Victoriia; Turnbull, Kathryn Jane; et al.
Structural Basis for Bacterial Ribosome-Associated Quality Control by RqcH and RqcP
Molecular Cell, Cell Press 2021, Vol. 81, (1) : 115-126.e7
Crowe-McAuliffe, Caillan; Takada, Hiraku; Murina, Victoriia; et al.
A holin/peptidoglycan hydrolase-dependent protein secretion system
Molecular Microbiology, John Wiley & Sons 2021, Vol. 115, (3) : 345-355
Palmer, Tracy; Finney, Alexander; Saha, Chayan Kumar; et al.
(p)ppGpp controls stringent factors by exploiting antagonistic allosteric coupling between catalytic domains
Molecular Cell, Elsevier 2021, Vol. 81, (16) : 3310-3322.e6
Roghanian, Mohammad; Van Nerom, Katleen; Takada, Hiraku; et al.
Structure of Erm-modified 70S ribosome reveals the mechanism of macrolide resistance
Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Publishing Group 2021, Vol. 17, (4) : 412-420
Svetlov, Maxim S.; Syroegin, Egor A.; Aleksandrova, Elena V.; et al.
A widespread toxin-antitoxin system exploiting growth control via alarmone signaling
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, National Academy of Sciences 2020, Vol. 117, (19) : 10500-10510
Jimmy, Steffi; Saha, Chayan Kumar; Kurata, Tatsuaki; et al.
FlaGs and webFlaGs: discovering novel biology through the analysis of gene neighbourhood conservation
Bioinformatics
Saha, Chayan Kumar; Pires, Rodrigo Sanches; Brolin, Harald; et al.
Elevated levels of VCA0117 in response to external signals activates type VI secretion in Vibrio cholerae A1552
Environmental Microbiology, John Wiley & Sons 2020, Vol. 22, (10) : 4409-4423
Seibt, Henrik; Aung, Kyaw Min; Ishikawa, Takahiko; et al.
The C-Terminal RRM/ACT Domain Is Crucial for Fine-Tuning the Activation of 'Long' RelA-SpoT Homolog Enzymes by Ribosomal Complexes
Frontiers in Microbiology, Frontiers Media S.A. 2020, Vol. 11
Takada, Hiraku; Roghanian, Mohammad; Murina, Victoriia; et al.
Target protection as a key antibiotic resistance mechanism
Nature Reviews Microbiology, Nature Publishing Group 2020, Vol. 18, (11) : 637-648
Wilson, Daniel N.; Hauryliuk, Vasili; Atkinson, Gemma C.; et al.
Ribosome profiling analysis of eEF3-depleted Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Scientific Reports, Nature Publishing Group 2019, Vol. 9
Kasari, Villu; Margus, Tonu; Atkinson, Gemma C.; et al.
A role for the Saccharomyces cerevisiae ABCF protein New1 in translation termination/recycling
Nucleic Acids Research, Oxford University Press 2019, Vol. 47, (16) : 8807-8820
Kasari, Villu; Pochopien, Agnieszka A.; Margus, Tonu; et al.
ABCF ATPases Involved in Protein Synthesis, Ribosome Assembly and Antibiotic Resistance: Structural and Functional Diversification across the Tree of Life
Journal of Molecular Biology, Elsevier 2019, Vol. 431, (18) : 3568-3590
Murina, Victoriia; Kasari, Marje; Takada, Hiraku; et al.
Structural basis for antibiotic resistance mediated by the Bacillus subtilis ABCF ATPase VmlR
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, National Academy of Sciences 2018, Vol. 115, (36) : 8978-8983
Crowe-McAuliffe, Caillan; Graf, Michael; Huter, Paul; et al.
Antibiotic resistance ABCF proteins reset the peptidyl transferase centre of the ribosome to counter translational arrest
Nucleic Acids Research, Oxford University Press 2018, Vol. 46, (7) : 3753-3763
Murina, Victoriia; Kasari, Marje; Hauryliuk, Vasili; et al.
Small Alarmone Synthetases as novel bacterial RNA-binding proteins
RNA Biology, Taylor & Francis 2017, Vol. 14, (12) : 1695-1699
Hauryliuk, Vasili; Atkinson, Gemma C.
Aim-less translation: loss of Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondrial translation initiation factor mIF3/Aim23 leads to unbalanced protein synthesis
Scientific Reports, Vol. 6
Kuzmenko, Anton; Derbikova, Ksenia; Salvatori, Roger; et al.
The evolutionary and functional diversity of classical and lesser-known cytoplasmic and organellar translational GTPases across the tree of life
BMC Genomics, Vol. 16
Atkinson, Gemma Catherine
Recent functional insights into the role of (p)ppGpp in bacterial physiology
Nature Reviews Microbiology, Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2015, Vol. 13, (5) : 298-309
Hauryliuk, Vasili; Atkinson, Gemma C.; Murakami, Katsuhiko S.; et al.
An evolutionary ratchet leading to loss of elongation factors in eukaryotes
BMC Evolutionary Biology, Vol. 14 : 35-
Atkinson, Gemma C.; Kuzmenko, Anton; Chicherin, Ivan; et al.
Macrolide antibiotics allosterically predispose the ribosome for translation arrest
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, National Academy of Sciences 2014, Vol. 111, (27) : 9804-9809
Sothiselvam, Shanmugapriya; Liu, Bo; Han, Wei; et al.
Translational stalling at polyproline stretches is modulated by the sequence context upstream of the stall site
Nucleic Acids Research, Oxford University Press 2014, Vol. 42, (16) : 10711-10719
Starosta, Agata L.; Lassak, Jürgen; Peil, Lauri; et al.
A conserved proline triplet in Val-tRNA synthetase and the origin of elongation factor P
Cell reports, Cell Press 2014, Vol. 9, (2) : 476-483
Starosta, Agata L; Lassak, Jürgen; Peil, Lauri; et al.
View publications in DiVA

Research groups

Head of research
Gemma Atkinson group