Dr Maria Makarova

Dr Maria Makarova

Department of Metabolism and Systems Science
Assistant Professor
Business Engagement Lead

Dr Maria Makarova is a Group leader at the Department of Metabolism and Systems Science (MSS) at College of Medicine and Health. Her research is focussed on the chemical biology of lipid metabolism, linking genetics and membrane biophysics with applications in evolution, cell physiology, and industrial microbiology.

Qualifications

  • PhD in experimental oncology (Russian Cancer Research Centre), 2010
  • Diploma in Biochemistry (Lomonosov Moscow State University), 2006

Teaching

  • 2022 – present. Undergraduate Lecturing: 1st year Biosciences, LC Fundamentals in Biochemistry (topics: TCA cycle, Glycolysis, Regulation of Metabolism).
  • 2022 – present. Undergraduate Lecturing: 1st year Biosciences, LC Chemistry for Biochemists (topics: Organic Chemistry).
  • 2021 – present. Undergraduate Lecturing: 1st year Biosciences, LC Metabolism ((topics: Metabolism across sciences, Methods in metabolism research, Central carbon metabolism, TCA cycle, Glycolysis).
  • 2021 – present. Undergraduate Lecturing: 2nd year Biosciences, LI Membranes Energy and Metabolism (topics: Amino acid metabolism, Lipid metabolism, Carbohydrate metabolism).

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Maria Makarova currently supervises doctoral researchers undertaking the following projects

-Lipid compatibility and evolutionary trade-offs in membrane biology
-Hypoxic adaptation of the cellular lipidome
-Lipid-mediated host-pathogen interactions in Mucor species
-Engineering fission yeast as a cell factory for medium-chain fatty acids (industrial collaboration)

Research

Research Themes

Our laboratory studies how oxygen availability shapes lipid metabolism, membrane organisation and cellular physiology, using the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces japonicus and other hypoxia-tolerant fungi as model systems.

Membrane lipid adaptation to anaerobic life

Most eukaryotes require molecular oxygen to synthesise sterols and unsaturated fatty acids, the lipids that underpin membrane fluidity and organisation. S. japonicus thrives without oxygen and offers a natural system in which to ask how cells rebuild functional membranes when these canonical lipids are unavailable. We combine lipidomics, live-cell imaging and genetics to define the alternative lipid strategies that support growth across oxygen regimes.

Evolution of lipid compatibility

Membranes are emergent systems in which sterols, sphingolipids and glycerophospholipids must function together. We investigate how compatibility between lipid classes constrains the evolution of lipidomes, using the trade-off between ergosterol and the hopanoid diplopterol as a tractable example of how cells balance oxygen-dependent and oxygen-independent membrane chemistries.

Lipids in fungal pathogenesis

Extending our work to the emerging pathogen Mucor, we examine how membrane lipid composition contributes to anaerobic dimorphism and to interactions between the fungus and its host.

Translational and industrial applications

We apply our understanding of fungal lipid metabolism to biotechnology, including an industrial collaboration on engineering fission yeast for medium-chain fatty acid production.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Niven, J, Kucuk, S, Gope, A, Certo, M, Cassidy, FC, Arana Echarri, A, Ali, S, Ladoukakis, E, Vidali, S, Macchi, C, Amir, SS, Bergin, R, Davies, S, Perkin, OJ, Smith, J, Cucchi, D, Heneghan, H, Wijesinghe, S, Jenkins, BJ, Baig, S, Mahony, C, Chidomere, C, Sarkar, S, Nicolaou, A, Caamaño, J, Croft, A, Davies, E, Thompson, D, O’Shea, D, Jones, SW, Duggal, NA, Ruscica, M, Makarova, M, Jones, N, Da Silva Xavier, G, Geberhiwot, T, Turner, JE, Hogan, AE, Nedjai, B & Mauro, C 2026, 'DNA methylation-mediated memory of obesity in CD4 T lymphocytes perpetuates immune dysregulation', EMBO Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44319-026-00765-w

Panconi, L, Euchner, J, Tashev, SA, Makarova, M, Herten, D-P, Owen, DM & Nieves, DJ 2024, 'Mapping membrane biophysical nano-environments', Nature Communications, vol. 15, no. 1, 9641. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53883-1

Panconi, L, Tansell, A, Collins, AJ, Makarova, M & Owen, DM 2024, 'Three-dimensional topology-based analysis segments volumetric and spatiotemporal fluorescence microscopy', Biological Imaging, vol. 4, e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2633903X23000260

Panconi, L, Lorenz, CD, May, RC, Owen, DM & Makarova, M 2023, 'Phospholipid tail asymmetry allows cellular adaptation to anoxic environments', The Journal of biological chemistry, vol. 299, no. 9, 105134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2023.105134

Grimes, J, Koszegi, Z, Lanoiselee, Y, Miljus, T, O'Brien, SL, Stepniewski, TM, Medel-Lacruz, B, Baidya, M, Makarova, M, Mistry, R, Goulding, J, Drube, J, Hoffmann, C, Owen, DM, Shukla, AK, Selent, J, Hill, SJ & Calebiro, D 2023, 'Plasma membrane preassociation drives β-arrestin coupling to receptors and activation', Cell, vol. 186, no. 10, pp. 2238-2255.e20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.04.018

Saidykhan, L, Correia, J, Romanyuk, A, Desanti, GE, Taylor-Smith, L, Makarova, M, Ballou, ER & May, RC 2022, 'An in vitro method for inducing titan cells reveals novel features of yeast-to-titan switching in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus gattii', PLoS Pathogens, vol. 18, no. 8, e1010321. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010321

Panconi, L, Makarova, M, Lambert, E, May, R & Owen, D 2022, 'Topology‐based fluorescence image analysis for automated cell identification and segmentation', Journal of Biophotonics. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbio.202200199

Simoncelli, S, Makarova, M, Wardley, W & Owen, DM 2017, 'Toward an axial nanoscale ruler for fluorescence microscopy', ACS Nano, vol. 11, no. 12, pp. 11762-11767. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.7b07133

Chapter

Makarova, M & May, RC 2021, Fungal extracellular vesicles in interkingdom communication. in M Rodrigues & G Janbon (eds), Fungal Extracellular Vesicles: Biological Roles. 1 edn, Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, vol. 432, Springer, Cham, pp. 81-88. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83391-6_8

Comment/debate

Saidykhan, L, Correia, J, Romanyuk, A, Peacock, AFA, Desanti, GE, Taylor-Smith, L, Makarova, M, Ballou, ER & May, RC 2022, 'Correction: An in vitro method for inducing titan cells reveals novel features of yeast-to-titan switching in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus gattii', PLoS Pathogens, vol. 18, no. 11, e1011001. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1011001

Preprint

Panconi, L, Lorenz, CD, May, R, Owen, D & Makarova, M 2022 'Phospholipid tail asymmetry allows cellular adaptation to anoxic environments' bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.08.04.502790

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