Dr Allister Crow
Associate Professor
Email: Allister.Crow@warwick.ac.uk
Phone: (contact via email or Teams please)
Office: IBRB 2.27
Bluesky: @allistercrow.bsky.socialLink opens in a new window
Research Clusters
Microbiology & Infectious Disease
Howard Dalton Centre for Mechanistic Enzymology
Vacancies and Opportunities
The Crow group welcomes:
Please contact me to discuss potential projects.
Publications
Research Interests
Allister Crow is a Structural Microbiologist based in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick.
My research focuses on proteins involved in bacterial cell division and intrinsic antibiotic resistance.
I am especially interested in the roles played by Type VII ABC transporters and the proteins they collaborate with in constructing and maintaining the bacterial cell envelope.
Our recent work has been focussed on how the bacterial peptidoglycan layer is broken during division by amidases that are activated by the FtsEX-EnvC system (Cook & Crow 2025 BioRxivLink opens in a new window, Cook & Baverstock 2023 PNAS, Cook 2021 PNAS).
We have also recently characterised the structure of YbbAP-TesA - a novel Type VII ABC transporter that forms a complex with a periplasmic esterase/lysophosphlipase (McAndrew 2025 BioRxivLink opens in a new window).
Research Projects
Bacterial cell envelope and outer membrane integrity
The cell envelope is a bacterium's first defence against antibiotics and the environment.
The peptidoglycan layer forms the heart of this envelope, consisting of a molecular mesh that protects each bacterium from osmotic stress and defines bacterial shape.
In Gram negative bacteria, the peptidoglycan layer also forms the attachment point for a second 'outer membrane' that further protects against large antibiotics, detergents, and the immune system.
Work in the Crow lab explores the structure and function of bacterial proteins that remodel the peptidoglycan layer during division and maintain cell envelope integrity.
Understanding how cell envelope proteins work addresses fundamental questions on how bacteria divide and protect themselves from antibiotics.
Type VII ABC transporters
ABC transporters are ATP-powered membrane proteins that typically move substrates across biological membranes. Type VII ABC transporters work differently, using transmembrane conformational change to couple ATP hydrolysis in the cytoplasm with work on the other side of the bacterial membrane.
Key to the activity of Type VII ABC systems are the ATP-driven conformational changes that are can be used to energise various periplasmic processes without transport of substrates across the inner membrane.
These molecular motions have been termed mechanotransmission and have been observed or inferred in several Type VII ABC systems, including MacAB-TolC, LolCDE-LolA, FtsEX-EnvC and, most recently, YbbAP-TesA.
These systems have important roles in cell division (FtsEX-EnvC), lipoprotein trafficking (LolCDE-LolA), antibiotic resistance & toxin secretion (MacAB-TolC), and lipid extraction and hydrolysis (YbbAP-TesA).
The Crow lab continues to study the structure and mechanism of Type VII ABC transporters.
Photostable Fluorescent Proteins (mStayGold)
In collaboration with colleagues in the Warwick Medical School, we have described a monomeric and highly photostable fluorescent protein called mStayGold (Ivorra-Molla 2023 Nature BiotechnologyLink opens in a new window) and a photostable red variant generated using genetic code expansion (Scott et al 2024 BioRxivLink opens in a new window).
The Crow Lab
The Crow lab use a combination of structural biology and microbiological techniques to address fundamental questions in microbiology. We hold a special affinity for x-ray crystallography and other structural and molecular techniques and embrace collaboration and data sharing.
- Associate Professor, University of Warwick, 2023-Present
- Assistant Professor, University of Warwick, 2018-present
- Postdoctoral Researcher (Lab of Prof. Vassilis Koronakis), University of Cambridge, 2011-2017
- Postdoctoral Researcher (Lab of Prof. Mark Banfield), John Innes Centre, 2009-2011
- Postdoctoral Researcher (Lab of Prof. Nick Le Brun), University of East Anglia, 2006-2009
- PhD, (Lab of Dr. Arthur Oubrie), University of East Anglia, 2003-2006