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FtsZ is a protein encoded by the ftsZ gene that assembles into a ring at the future site of bacterial cell division. FtsZ is a prokaryotic homologue of the eukaryotic protein tubulin. The initials FtsZ mean "Filamenting temperature-sensitive mutant Z." The hypothesis was that cell division mutants of E. coli would grow as filaments due to the inability of the daughter cells to separate from one another. FtsZ is found in almost all bacteria, many archaea, all chloroplasts and some mitochondria, where it is essential for cell division. FtsZ assembles the cytoskeletal scaffold of the Z ring that, along with additional proteins, constricts to divide the cell in two.
Bacillus subtilis, known also as the hay bacillus or grass bacillus, is a Gram-positive, catalase-positive bacterium, found in soil and the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants, humans and marine sponges. As a member of the genus Bacillus, B. subtilis is rod-shaped, and can form a tough, protective endospore, allowing it to tolerate extreme environmental conditions. B. subtilis has historically been classified as an obligate aerobe, though evidence exists that it is a facultative anaerobe. B. subtilis is considered the best studied Gram-positive bacterium and a model organism to study bacterial chromosome replication and cell differentiation. It is one of the bacterial champions in secreted enzyme production and used on an industrial scale by biotechnology companies.
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Richard Marc Losick is an American molecular biologist. He is the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology at Harvard University, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He is especially noted for his investigations of endospore formation in Gram positive organisms such as Bacillus subtilis.
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The prokaryotic cytoskeleton is the collective name for all structural filaments in prokaryotes. It was once thought that prokaryotic cells did not possess cytoskeletons, but advances in visualization technology and structure determination led to the discovery of filaments in these cells in the early 1990s. Not only have analogues for all major cytoskeletal proteins in eukaryotes been found in prokaryotes, cytoskeletal proteins with no known eukaryotic homologues have also been discovered. Cytoskeletal elements play essential roles in cell division, protection, shape determination, and polarity determination in various prokaryotes.
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Tania A. Baker is an American biochemist who is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and formally the head of the Department of Biology. She earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin–Madison and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University under the guidance of Arthur Kornberg. She joined the MIT faculty in 1992 and her research is focused on the mechanisms and regulation of DNA transposition and protein chaperones. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator since 1994.
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A plasmid partition system is a mechanism that ensures the stable inheritance of plasmids during bacterial cell division. Each plasmid has its independent replication system which controls the number of copies of the plasmid in a cell. The higher the copy number, the more likely the two daughter cells will contain the plasmid. Generally, each molecule of plasmid diffuses randomly, so the probability of having a plasmid-less daughter cell is 21−N, where N is the number of copies. For instance, if there are 2 copies of a plasmid in a cell, there is 50% chance of having one plasmid-less daughter cell. However, high-copy number plasmids have a cost for the hosting cell. This metabolic burden is lower for low-copy plasmids, but those have a higher probability of plasmid loss after a few generations. To control vertical transmission of plasmids, in addition to controlled-replication systems, bacterial plasmids use different maintenance strategies, such as multimer resolution systems, post-segregational killing systems, and partition systems.
Everett Peter Greenberg is an American microbiologist. He is the inaugural Eugene and Martha Nester Professor of Microbiology at the Department of Microbiology of the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is best known for his research on quorum sensing, and has received multiple awards for his work.
Mary-Lou Pardue is an American geneticist who is a professor emerita in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which she originally joined in 1972. Her research focused on the role of telomeres in chromosome replication, particularly in Drosophila.
Daniel A. Portnoy is a microbiologist, the Edward E. Penhoet Distinguished Chair in Global Public Health and Infectious Diseases, and a Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and in the Division of Microbiology in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is one of the world's foremost experts on Listeria monocytogenes, the bacterium that causes the severe foodborne illness Listeriosis. He has made seminal contributions to multiple aspects of bacterial pathogenesis, cell biology, innate immunity, and cell mediated immunity using L. monocytogenes as a model system and has helped to push forward the use of attenuated L. monocytogenes as an immunotherapeutic tool in the treatment of cancer.
Job Dekker is a Dutch biologist. Dekker is a professor in the Department of Systems Biology, and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
References
- ↑ "Alan D. Grossman". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
- ↑ "Alan D. Grossman". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
- ↑ "Alan D. Grossman". MIT Department of Biology. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
- ↑ "Alan D. Grossman named head of the Department of Biology". MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 4 August 2014. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
- ↑ Ireton K, Gunther NW, Grossman AD (1994). "spo0J is required for normal chromosome segregation as well as the initiation of sporulation in Bacillus subtilis". J Bacteriol. 176 (17): 5320–9. doi:10.1128/jb.176.17.5320-5329.1994. PMC 196717 . PMID 8071208.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Lin DC, Grossman AD (1998). "Identification and characterization of a bacterial chromosome partitioning site". Cell. 92 (5): 675–85. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(00)81135-6. hdl: 1721.1/83851 . PMID 9506522. S2CID 11402267.
- ↑ "Alan Grossman shares lessons learned from his lifesaving gift". MIT School of Science. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
