Giovanni Bertoni was awarded the degree in Biological Sciences with summa cum laude and the Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology by Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy) in 1989 and 1993, respectively. From 1994 to 1998, he has been a postdoc at Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas (CSIC) and Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia (CSIC), Madrid (Spain). He went back to work at Università degli Studi di Milano in 1999, at first as a postdoc, then became Research Associate in 2000 and Associate Professor in 2010. From the beginning of his scientific activity, he has been working in the field of the molecular genetics of bacteria belonging to the genus Pseudomonas, with particular emphasis on gene regulation and biochemistry of transcription. Lately, he has been also involved in projects of functional genomics, proteomics and transcriptomics in P. putida and P. aeruginosa.

Despite the advent of the antibiotic era, infectious diseases retain a prominent position as a major worldwide cause of mortality. This problem has worsened with the emergence of multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria and the failure of pharmaceutical company drug discovery programmes to design antibiotics with truly novel modes of action. Our laboratory is partner of an EU granted consortium with complementary expertise in the fields of molecular pathogenicity and high competitiveness in drug discovery, optimisation and preclinical development. This consortium aims at the generation of new strategies leading to the identification and validation of novel targets, both proteins and sRNAs, for antimicrobials using as model organisms the gram-negatives Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cenocepacia, as they cause high morbidity and mortality worldwide. The versatility of these model bacteria will enable the results obtained to be extrapolated to other important bacterial pathogens. In the view that infection prevention is better than antibacterial cure, our research is also focused on the identification of P. aeruginosa vaccine targets. Our approach is to map exposed epitopes via proteomic analysis of the bacterial "surfaceome". Finally, aware of the possibility to develop additional strategies of infection prevention, we are also engaged in the comprehension of the adaptation mechanisms of P. aeruginosa underlying the establishment of the lung chronic infections.

Vidal-Aroca, F., Giannattasio, M., Brunelli, E., Vezzoli, A., Plevani, P., Muzi-Falconi, M., and Bertoni, G. (2006) One-step high-throughput assay for quantitative detection of B-galactosidase activity in intact gram-negative bacteria, yeast and mammalian cells. BioTechniques 40:433-440.

Nogales, J., Macchi, R., Franchi, F., Barzaghi, D., Fernandez, C., Garcia, J. L., Bertoni, G. and Diaz, E. (2007) Characterization of the last step of the aerobic phenylacetic acid degradation pathway Microbiology 153: 357-365.

Barbieri, P., Solera, D., Galli, E., Vidal"Aroca, F., and Bertoni, G. (2007) Degradation of o"xylene by Pseudomonas stutzeri OX1 (Pseudomonas sp. OX1). In: Juan"Luis Ramos and Alain Filloux Eds. Pseudomonas vol. V. "Pseudomonas: a Model System in Biology" New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp 89-105.

Montanari, S., Oliver A., Salerno, P., Mena, A., Bertoni, G., Tümmler, B., Cariani, L., Conese, M., Döring, G., and Bragonzi, A. (2007) Biological cost of hypermutation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains from patients with cystic fibrosis. Microbiology. 153: 1445-1454.

Radice, F., Orlandi, V., Massa, V., Battini, V., Bertoni, G., Reineke, W., and Barbieri, P. (2007) Cloning of the Arthrobacter sp. FG1 dehalogenase genes and construction of hybrid pathways in Pseudomonas putida strains. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 75:1111-1118.

Zurla, C., Samuely, T., Bertoni, G., Valle, F., Dietler, G., Finzi, L., and Dunlap, D.D. (2007) Integration host factor alters LacI-induced DNA looping Biophys.Chem. 128: 245-252.

Alessandrini, A.; Bortolotti, C., Bertoni, G., Vezzoli, A.; and Facci, P. (2008) Ultra-flat Nickel Substrates for Scanning Probe Microscopy of Polyhistidine-Tagged Proteins J Phys Chem C 112: 3747-3750.

Di Gennaro, P., Ferrara, S., Bestetti, G., Sello, G., Solera, D., Galli, E., Renzi, F, and Bertoni, G. (2008) Novel auto-inducing expression systems for the development of whole-cell biocatalysts. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 79:617"625.

Vitale, E., Milani, A., Renzi, F., Galli, E., Rescalli, E., de Lorenzo, V, and Bertoni, G. (2008) Transcriptional wiring of the TOL plasmid regulatory network to its host involves the submission of the sigma-promoter Pu to the response regulator PprA. Mol. Microbiol. 69: 698-713.

Renzi, F., Rescalli, E., Galli, E., and Bertoni, G. (2010) Identification of genes regulated by the MvaT-like paralogs TurA and TurB of Pseudomonas putida KT2440. Environmental Microbiology 12: 254"263.

Bianconi, I., Milani, A., Cigana, C., Paroni, M., Levesque, R.C., Bertoni, G. and Bragonzi, A. (2011) Positive signature-tagged mutagenesis in Pseudomonas aeruginosa: tracking patho-adaptive mutations promoting airways chronic infection. PLoS Pathog 7(2): e1001270.

No projects are available to students for the current accademic year.