The Lithgow group work towards understanding the molecular machines that transfer proteins into mitochondria.

Our methodology relies on identification and characterization of the component parts of the machines from yeast, using a combination of genetic strategies and biochemical assays, and bioinformatic approaches to identify the equivalent machinery in other organisms. We are interested in the molecular machines of human parasites such as Trypanosoma, Entamoeba, Trichomonas and Giardia. Because mitochondria were derived from intracellular bacteria, we are also studying key membrane proteins from the alpha-proteobacterium Caulobacter. This has both evolutionary and biomedical significance given the many alpha-proteobacterial pathogens for which effective vaccines are needed.

Techniques include: Yeast genetics, molecular biology (construction and modification of plasmids, in vitro transcription, Southern and Western blot analyses), cell biology (GFP-technology, purification of sub-cellular fractions, in vitro assays of protein translation, folding and translocation, blue native gel electrophoresis), bioinformatics (comparative genomics, hidden Markov model analyses), protein expression and purification, protein biochemistry.

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Trevor Lithgow Bio 

Trevor Lithgow completed his PhD at La Trobe University with Nick Hoogenraad and Peter Høj, and then moved to the University of Basel, to work with Gottfried Schatz on protein import into mitochondria. On returning to Australia, Trevor was awarded an AMRAD Postdoctoral Biomedical Research Award and a Human Frontiers Science Program 10th Anniversary Award for outstanding postdoctoral performance. The most recent projects in the lab are informed by comparative genomics; finding troublesome members of several protein families, understanding the evolution of the protein import machinery and, recently, the discovery of a bacterial-type protein assembly machinery in the mitochondrial outer membrane. This SAM complex, as it has come to be known, is essential for the assembly of new membrane components including those mediating mitochondrial division, fusion and cell death. As the SAM complex was derived from a functionally equivalent machine in the outer membrane of the alpha-proteobacterial ancestor of mitochondria, work on the mitochondrial SAM complex is shedding new light on how bacteria assemble their outer membranes today. Trevor has been recognized for his research achievements and was awarded in 2005 the David Syme Foundation Research Prize and the Victor Chang Medal.

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Lithgow Research Group 

Research Staff

• Dr Pavel Dolezal          
• Mr Andrew Perry          
• Ms Xenia Gatsos          
• Mr Joel Selkrig              
• Mr. Allen Foo                

Postgraduate Students

• Ms Joanne Hulett          
• Mr Nickie Chan
• Mr Dejan Bursa 
• Mr Michael Dagley        
• Ms Franziska Lueder
• Ms Khatira Anwari        
• Mr Srgjan _iv_iristov

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