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Home > Research Leaders > A to G > Tanmay Bharat
Tanay Bharat ss

Tanmay Bharat

Role of Surface Molecules in Microbial Multicellularity


Personal group site

Our laboratory uses electron cryo-tomography (cryo-ET) to study how surface molecules allow microorganisms (bacteria and archaea) to form multicellular communities. We develop novel correlative imaging and image processing techniques to support our inquiries. Surface molecules play key roles in mediating cell-cell interactions, which underpin the formation of biofilms and microbiomes.

Structural and cell biology across scales from atoms to cells reveals principle of surface layer biogenesis.

While structural biology of many cell surface molecules reveals fundamental information about bacterial and archaeal cell-cell interactions, our work has clear biomedical relevance. For example, surface molecules allow pathogenic bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Mycobacterium tuberculosis to evade antibiotics by forming biofilms during infection.

Phage liquid crystals protect bacteria from antibiotics (left).
Governing principles of biofilm formation revealed by advanced cryo-ET imaging (right).

With our fundamental work, our goal is to unravel general principles governing multicellular interactions in microbes, to understand how emergent properties such as antibiotic tolerance arise within multicellular communities of prokaryotes.  We have utilised the fundamental molecular mechanisms revealed in our work to develop approaches to disrupt pathogenic microbial biofilms, which we are further developing in collaboration with clinicians.

Selected Papers

  • Kügelgen, A.v., Cassidy, C.K., Dorst, S.v., Pagani, L.L., Batters, C., Ford, Z., Löwe, J., Alva, V., Stansfeld, P.J., Bharat, T.A.M. (2024)
    Membraneless channels sieve cations in ammonia-oxidizing marine archaea
    Nature 630: 230-236
  • Böhning, J., Graham, M., Letham, S.C., Davis, L.K., Schulze, U., Stansfeld, P.J., Corey, R.A., Pearce, P., Tarafder, A.K., Bharat, T.A.M. (2023)
    Biophysical basis of filamentous phage tactoid-mediated antibiotic tolerance in P. aeruginosa
    Nat Commun 14 (1): 8429
  • Böhning, J., Ghrayeb, M., Pedebos, C., Abbas, D.K., Khalid, S., Chai, L., Bharat, T.A.M. (2022)
    Donor-strand exchange drives assembly of the TasA scaffold in Bacillus subtilis biofilms.
    Nat Commun 13: 7082
  • Melia, C., Bolla, J.R., Lanwermeyer, S.K., Mihaylov, D., Hoffmann, P.C., Huo, J., Wozny, M.R., Elfari, L.M., Böhning, J., Owens, R.J., Robinson, C.V., O’Toole, G.A., Bharat, T.A.M. (2021)
    Architecture of cell-cell junctions in situ reveals a mechanism for bacterial biofilm inhibition.
    Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 118(31): e2109940118
  • von Kügelgen, A., Tang., H., Hardy, G.G., Kureisaite-Ciziene, D., Brun, Y.V., Stansfeld, P.J., Robinson, C.V., and Bharat, T.A.M. (2020)
    In Situ Structure of an Intact Lipopolysaccharide-Bound Bacterial Surface Layer
    Cell 180(2): 348-358
  • Tarafder, A.K., et al., von Kügelgen, A., Mellul, A., Schulze, U., Aarts, D. and Bharat, T.A.M (2020)
    Phage liquid crystalline droplets form occlusive sheaths that encapsulate and protect infectious rod-shaped bacteria
    Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Group Members

  • Jan Böhning
  • Ido Caspy
  • Camila Clemente
  • Zephyr Ford
  • Buse Isbilir
  • Kenny Jungfer
  • Eloise Mawdesley
  • Hannah Ochner
  • Olivia Smith
  • Abul Tarafder
  • Bogdan Toader
  • Andriko von Kügelgen
  • Zhexin (Eric) Wang

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Research Leaders

  • A to G
    • Matteo Allegretti
    • Radu Aricescu
    • Diana Arseni
    • David Barford
    • Buzz Baum
    • Anne Bertolotti
    • Tanmay Bharat
    • Simon Bullock
    • Albert Cardona
    • Andrew Carter
    • Jason Chin
    • Emmanuel Derivery
    • Juliette Fedry
    • Michel Goedert
    • Joe Greener
    • Ingo Greger
  • H to M
    • Michael Hastings
    • Ramanujan Hegde
    • Philipp Holliger
    • Leo James
    • Gregory Jefferis
    • Joergen Kornfeld
    • Patrycja Kozik
    • Madeline Lancaster
    • Roni Levin Konigsberg
    • Jan Löwe
    • Kate McDole
    • Andrew McKenzie
    • Harvey McMahon
    • Liz Miller
    • Sean Munro
    • Garib Murshudov
  • N to S
    • Kelly Nguyen
    • John O’Neill
    • Lori Passmore
    • Lalita Ramakrishnan
    • Venki Ramakrishnan
    • Felix Randow
    • Jing Ren
    • Wes Robertson
    • Noe Rodriguez
    • Christopher Russo
    • Benjamin Ryskeldi-Falcon
    • Julian Sale
    • William Schafer
    • Sjors Scheres
    • Marta Shahbazi
    • John Sutherland
  • T to Z
    • Chris Tate
    • Marco Tripodi
    • Ana Tufegdžić Vidaković
    • Roger Williams
    • Joseph Yeeles
    • Suyang Zhang
    • Marta Zlatic
    • Jerome Zürcher
  • Emeritus
    • Brad Amos
    • Mariann Bienz
    • Tony Crowther
    • Phil Evans
    • Alan Fersht
    • Michael Gait
    • Richard Henderson
    • Rob Kay
    • John Kendrick-Jones
    • John Kilmartin
    • Peter Lawrence
    • Andrew Leslie
    • David Neuhaus
    • Hugh Pelham
    • Daniela Rhodes
    • Murray Stewart
    • Andrew Travers
    • Nigel Unwin
    • Greg Winter
  • LMB Fellows
  • Molecular Immunity Unit

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