Professor Paul Taylor

Introduction

It is widely accepted that eukaryogenesis involved an endosymbiosis between at least one archaeon, probably from the Asgard lineage, and at least one bacterium, most likely an ancestral -proteobacterium. More controversial and less well understood is the possibility of further symbioses or other significant gene flows from bacteria to ancestral eukaryotes. Both the order in which these key evolutionary events occurred and their timeline are unclear. Characterising the origins of animals from this ancient mix is of particular interest.

We use phylogenetic analyses to explore the evolution of chemical signalling processes and how the characteristic signalling pathways in animals emerged during eukaryogenesis. Current areas of interest are retinoid signalling, calcium signalling and peroxynitrite signalling.

Our more applied research uses chemical genomics approaches to find new cancer relevant targets for existing drugs and explores how dietary nutrients interact with cancer treatments, as exemplified by VAL401, an adenocarcinoma treatment currently in clinical trials for non-small cell lung cancer.

Detailed research programme

The Evolutionary Origins of Neurotransmission

Eukaryogenesis is one of the great mysteries of modern science. Whereas most recent papers on the topic concern the prokaryotic origins of all eukaryotes, we are focusing instead on the ancestry of a single kingdom, the animals. Neurotransmission is in many ways the defining characteristic of animals, which are multicellular organisms that can sense changes in their environment and react quickly. Distinctive though neurotransmission is, it is not realistic to assume that all its components emerged suddenly in a particular ancestral animal. Indeed, homologs of many proteins involved in neurotransmission are found in plants and other eukaryotes as well as in many phyla of bacteria. Our current work concerns phylogenetic analysis of the archetypal machinery of neurotransmission, ionic glutamate receptors, calmodulin, and enzymes that biosynthesise neurotransmitters.

Molecular Nutrition

Small molecules such as ergothioneine and phytosterols are widely believed to have positive health benefits. yet the molecular basis of their activities is poorly understood. We use combined bioinformatics, synthetic chemistry and chemical proteomics methods to probe the interactions of nutrients with the proteome.