Laboratory for protein metal interaction studies (LIPM)
CEA Cadarache
04 42.25 43 84
catherine.berthomieu@cea.fr
Constituted in 2006, the Laboratory of Protein Metal Interactions (Laboratoire des Interactions Protéine Métal, LIPM) develops researches in the field of environmental nuclear toxicology.
The objectives of the Laboratory are the analysis of mechanisms involved in the physiological response related to bacteria exposure to toxic metals, radionuclides and in particular uranium, on environmental bacteria from naturally uranium-rich or radionuclide contaminated soils, and on Escherichia coli; the analysis of target proteins of metals and of structural determinants of metal sites properties, with the longer-term objective to engineer uranium binding architectures.
These projects are carried out by a multidisciplinary approach of microbiology, genetics, biochemistry combined with the use of mass spectrometry and infra-red spectroscopy (IRTF) for the study of the metal sites in proteins.
Associated units
The laboratory belongs to the Mixed Unit of Research CEA-CNRS-University Aix-Marseille (UMR6191)
Human resources
10 to 14
Key words
Metal and radionuclides stress, bacterium-uranium, protein-uranium interactions, structure-function relationships in metalloproteins, mass spectrometry, IRTF spectroscopy.