Kuva: Suchintak Dash
In his doctoral dissertation, Rahul Jagadeesan investigated how bacteria reorganize different levels of cellular regulation to adapt to stressful conditions such as antibiotics, temperature changes, and nutrient limitation. His work shows that this adaptation is shaped by several interacting topological layers, including the organization of genes within operons, global transcriptional regulatory networks, nucleoid structure, and the conformational properties of proteins. The study found that internal promoters can help maintain gene expression when transcription is prematurely interrupted, while global factor networks coordinate distinct stress-specific responses. It also showed that during combined temperature and antibiotic stress, temperature can dominate the bacterial response by altering cellular energy levels, nucleoid organization, protein–DNA interactions and the stability of antibiotic–target complexes. Together, these findings reveal how bacteria coordinate multiple layers of regulation to survive complex stresses and identify potential vulnerabilities that could be targeted to make antimicrobial treatments more effective.
The doctoral dissertation titled Topological Control of Bacterial Stress Adaptation by M.Sc. Rahul Jagadeesan will be publicly examined in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology at Tampere University on 3 September 2026. The dissertation is in the field of Computational Systems Biology.
The Opponent will be Dr Thamarai Schneiders from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The Custos will be Professor Andre S. Ribeiro from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University.