Developing Tools for Investigating Chemotaxis Signal Clusters in Bacillus Subtilis
نویسندگان
چکیده
Title of Thesis: DEVELOPING TOOLS FOR INVESTIGATING CHEMOTAXIS SIGNAL CLUSTERS IN BACILLUS SUBTILIS James A. Rogers, Jr., Master of Science, 2012 Thesis directed by: Associate Professor Richard C. Stewart Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics Many bacteria make use of a set of dedicated chemoreceptor proteins to control a His-Asp signaling system; this control converts environmental sensory information into instructions that regulate flagellar rotation, enabling chemotaxis. This thesis summarizes my investigations of some of the chemotaxis signaling proteins in Bacillus subtilis, particularly coupling proteins CheW and CheV. Proteins CheA, CheW, CheV, CheY, and FliM were each expressed in B. subtilis as translational fusions with either YFP or CFP. These fusion proteins were then shown to fluoresce in living bacterial cells. Motility experiments were conducted to compare the function of these fusion proteins to their wild type counterparts. This thesis proposes a series of experiments that would use these fluorescent fusion proteins to further explore the idea that these chemotaxis proteins change position when B. subtilis encounters chemostimuli. DEVELOPING TOOLS FOR INVESTIGATING CHEMOTAXIS SIGNAL CLUSTERS IN BACILLUS SUBTILIS
منابع مشابه
CheX in the three-phosphatase system of bacterial chemotaxis.
Bacterial chemotaxis involves the regulation of motility by a modified two-component signal transduction system. In Escherichia coli, CheZ is the phosphatase of the response regulator CheY but many other bacteria, including Bacillus subtilis, use members of the CheC-FliY-CheX family for this purpose. While Bacillus subtilis has only CheC and FliY, many systems also have CheX. The effect of this...
متن کاملThe conserved cytoplasmic module of the transmembrane chemoreceptor McpC mediates carbohydrate chemotaxis in Bacillus subtilis.
Escherichia coli cells use two distinct sensory circuits during chemotaxis towards carbohydrates. One circuit requires the phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent phosphotransferase system (PTS) and is independent of any specific chemoreceptor, whereas the other uses a chemoreceptor-dependent sensory mechanism analogous to that used during chemotaxis towards amino acids. Work on the carbohydrate chemotax...
متن کاملDesign and Diversity in Bacterial Chemotaxis: A Comparative Study in Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis
Comparable processes in different species often involve homologous genes. One question is whether the network structure, in particular the feedback control structure, is also conserved. The bacterial chemotaxis pathways in E. coli and B. subtilis both regulate the same task, namely, excitation and adaptation to environmental signals. Both pathways employ many orthologous genes. Yet how these or...
متن کاملCheC is related to the family of flagellar switch proteins and acts independently from CheD to control chemotaxis in Bacillus subtilis.
Chemotaxis by Bacillus subtilis requires the inter-acting chemotaxis proteins CheC and CheD. In this study, we show that CheD is absolutely required for a behavioural response to proline mediated by McpC but is not required for the response to asparagine mediated by McpB. We also show that CheC is not required for the excitation response to asparagine stimulation but is required for adaptation ...
متن کاملMethyl group turnover on methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins during chemotaxis by Bacillus subtilis.
The addition of attractant to Bacillus subtilis briefly exposed to radioactive methionine causes an increase of labeling of the methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins. The addition of attractant to cells radiolabeled for longer times shows no change in the extent of methylation. Therefore, the increase in labeling for the briefly labeled cells is due to an increased turnover of methyl groups caus...
متن کامل