Collaborative Research: Mechanism of Polarized Budding in Chlamydia

理解细胞分裂过程背后的机制是定义生命规则的基础，这项研究将确定细菌王国的一个子集产生子细胞所使用的极化分裂过程所必需的事件。这项合作研究将由田纳西大学健康科学中心、田纳西大学诺克斯维尔分校和内布拉斯加州大学医学中心的研究人员进行，并将在分子细胞生物学和计算生物物理学的界面上培训研究生。田纳西大学健康科学中心的研究项目将由西南田纳西社区学院（西南）生物技术项目的本科生研究人员支持，他们将获得实践经验，这将有助于他们的学位。除了与项目中的每一位研究人员进行互动外，西南大学的学生还将与研究生进行广泛的互动，后者将获得一对一教学和指导的宝贵经验。该项目的研究人员还将向西南大学生物技术项目的所有参与者每年做一次报告，让项目中的所有学生（其中许多人来自贫困家庭）了解STEM领域的职业选择。从这些研究中产生的结果将被广泛传播和发展，作为一种工具，教师可以使用它向本科生说明细菌王国成员利用的细胞分裂过程的多样性。衣原体属的细菌通过一种称为极化出芽的新过程分裂，正如细菌超级门的植物- verrucomicrobiae -衣原体的其他成员的一个子集一样。经历极化出芽的细菌不表达FtsZ蛋白，而FtsZ蛋白对绝大多数细菌作为细胞分裂机制的二元裂变过程至关重要。控制FtsZ-less细菌细胞分裂的调控事件尚不清楚，本研究项目的研究将确定控制极化出芽的潜在分子机制。具体来说，该项目将定义磷脂在衣原体细胞分裂过程中产生膜曲率变化中的作用。该研究还将确定磷脂在极化出芽细胞中调节膜和胞质蛋白定位中的作用。该项目将汇集来自多个机构的研究人员，他们具有独特和互补的专业知识，以确定衣原体用于分裂的极化出芽过程中调节离散步骤的分子机制。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Understanding the mechanisms underlying the process of cell division is fundamental to defining the rules of life, and this research will determine the events necessary for the polarized division process used by a subset of the bacterial kingdom to generate daughter cells. This collaborative research endeavor will be carried out by investigators from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and it will allow for the training of graduate students at the interface of molecular cell biology and computational biophysics. The research projects at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center will be supported by undergraduate researchers from the Biotechnology Program at Southwest Tennessee Community College (Southwest), who will gain hands-on experience that will contribute toward their degree. In addition to their interactions with each of the investigators on the project, the Southwest students will interact extensively with graduate students who will obtain valuable experience in one-on-one teaching and mentoring. The investigators on this project will also make yearly presentations to all participants in the Biotechnology Program at Southwest to expose all students in the program, many of whom are from underprivileged backgrounds, to career options in the STEM fields. The results generated from these studies will be broadly disseminated and developed as a tool that teachers can access to illustrate to undergraduate students the diversity of cell division processes utilized by members of the bacterial kingdom.Bacteria of the genus Chlamydia divide by a novel process termed polarized budding, as do a subset of the other members of the Planctomycetes-Verrucomicrobiae-Chlamydiae superphylum of bacteria. The bacteria that undergo polarized budding do not express the protein FtsZ, which is critical for the process of binary fission that the vast majority of bacteria use as a mechanism for cell division. The regulatory events that control cell division in FtsZ-less bacteria are not understood, and the studies in this research project will define underlying molecular mechanisms that govern polarized budding. Specifically, the project will define the role of phospholipids in generating changes in membrane curvature that arise in Chlamydia during cell division. The research will also determine the role of phospholipids in regulating the localization of membrane and cytosolic proteins in cells undergoing polarized budding. The project will bring together researchers from multiple institutions with distinct and complementary expertise to define molecular mechanisms that regulate discrete steps in the polarized budding process that Chlamydia use to divide.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.