Course outline:

The course will aim to discuss the organisation and evolution of bacterial genomes and the networks that read the information contained in these genomes. This will include the following areas:

 1.          A historical overview of human understanding of bacteria and their place in the tree of life

Bacterial genomes - and the minimal functions for cellular life, properties of gene and protein sequences, genome sizes and scaling laws (*)

Bacterial species and gene phylogenies (*)

What makes a genome - information and “junk” (*)

Forces underlying the evolution of bacterial genomes - mutation, genome reduction and genome growth (*)

Organisation of bacterial genomes (*)

Reading genomes - transcription, transcriptional networks and their evolution

(*) Sections will include some hands-on bioinformatics sessions

Course outcomes:

Understand and analyse basic properties of bacterial genomes

Understand sequence-conservation-function relationships for bacterial protein sequences

Understand the evolutionary forces underlying the content of genomes

Understand the process of transcription and gene regulation and how these interplay with genome organisation