SCAN:Subcellular organization in bacteria that divide in orthogonal planes
Mariana Pinho Head of Bacterial Cell Biology Laboratory
| When |
16 Mar, 2011
from
12:00 pm to 01:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Where | Auditorium |
| Add event to your calendar |
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SCAN Seminar-ITQB
Title: Subcellular organization in bacteria that divide in orthogonal planes
Speaker: Mariana Pinho
From: Head of Bacterial Cell Biology Laboratory
Abstract:
Bacterial cells have revealed a surprising degree of protein organization. Many essential cellular processes, such as cell division or cell wall synthesis, are performed by higher order protein complexes, which are precisely regulated in time and space. In the Bacterial Cell Biology Laboratory we are interested in understanding these processes in the spherical bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. S. aureus is a Gram positive pathogen and one of the most common causes of antibiotic resistant hospital-acquired infections. Currently it kills more people in the USA than AIDS/HIV and tuberculosis combined. Besides its clinical relevance, S. aureus is also a very interesting model to study cell division because it has a different mode of division from the traditional, widely used, model organisms Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis: it divides in three consecutive perpendicular division planes over three division cycles, similarly to the first divisions of a fertilized egg. This seminar will focus on the mechanisms used by S. aureus to assemble a division septum in three orthogonal planes and to synthesize cell wall at that place.
