Title: Motility Enhancement through Surface Modification is Sufficient for Emergent Behaviors During Phototaxis
Abstract: 2920-Pos Board B612 Quantitation of Cell Wall Growth Suggests Feedback Mechanisms that Robustly Build Rod-Like Bacteria Tristan Ursell, Kerwyn Casey Huang. Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. In bacteria, a host of enzymes regulates the reproducible and robust construction of the cell wall, whose mechanical integrity is crucial for viability under osmotic stress. Antibiotics that target these enzymes disrupt cell wall construction, ultimately leading to mechanical failure of the cell. Our work explores the physical mechanisms of cell growth and death, as a guide to understanding antibiotic mechanisms that disrupt mechanical properties of the cell. We use a combination of cell wall fluorescent labeling, high resolution time-lapse microscopy, and computational image processing to characterize where, and with what dynamics, cell wall and outer membrane growth occurs. When cell-shape analysis is combined biophysical simulations of growth, our data strongly suggest that dynamic localization of the bacterial MreB cytoskeleton is part of a curvature sensing and growth feedback mechanism that orchestrates heterogeneous growth to maintain rod-like shape and regulate mechanical stress. Analysis of MreB and cell-surface marker fluorescence indicates that the cytoskeleton is present at sites of active growth and that chemical depolymerization of the cytoskeleton causes homogenous, unstructured growth and eventual cell death by rupture. Quantitative tracking of growth is an effective method for characterizing cell wall mechanical failure, and these techniques pave the way for studying the detailed dynamics of growth-associated proteins and their disturbance by antibiotics.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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