Fabian Neukirchinger
Doctoral candidate
Microbiology
Research
My research investigates how DNA methylation influences three-dimensional chromosome organization in Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium with an unusually diverse set of restriction-modification systems and methyltransferases. Using Hi-C and recombinantly purified proteins, I revealed that the chromosome partitioning protein ParB is involved in chromosome organization and is methylation-sensitive, while corresponding methyltransferase deletions disrupt chromosome-arm alignment, suggesting that methylation contributes to higher-order genome structure. The work points toward a novel role of methylation in shaping chromosome architecture, independent of canonical structural maintenance of chromosome complexes.