Marcelo is part a network of UK and Brazilian researchers working closely together as a Virtual Joint Centre to develop innovative technologies to increase crop productivity in Brazil, using diazotrophic bacteria as a source of fixed nitrogen.
The major aim of the project is to exploit current knowledge of nitrogen regulation in nitrogen fixing bacteria to engineer strains, which excrete ammonium to benefit crop growth.
The group aim to design engineered bacteria with enhanced nitrogen fixation in which the process of ammonia biosynthesis by nitrogenase is uncoupled from its assimilation, thus enabling export of surplus fixed nitrogen
Selected Publications
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Batista M. B., Teixeira C. S., Sfeir M. Z. T., Alves L. P. S., Valdameri G., Pedrosa F. O., Sassaki G. L., Steffens M. B. R., de Souza E. M., Dixon R., Müller-Santos M. (2018)PHB Biosynthesis Counteracts Redox Stress in Herbaspirillum seropedicae.Frontiers in microbiology (9)Publisher's version: 1664-302X
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Batista M. B., Chandra G., Monteiro R. A., de Souza E. M., Dixon R. (2018)Hierarchical interactions between Fnr orthologs allows fine-tuning of transcription in response to oxygen in Herbaspirillum seropedicaeNucleic Acids Research (46 (8))Publisher's version: 1362-4962