Collaborative Research: Mechanism of Polarized Budding in Chlamydia

了解细胞分裂过程的潜在机制是定义生命规则的基础，这项研究将确定细菌界的一个子集用来产生子细胞的极化分裂过程所必需的事件。这项合作研究工作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大学医学中心的研究人员进行，它将允许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得到来自西南田纳西社区学院(Southwest)生物技术项目的本科生研究人员的支持，他们将获得实践经验，这将有助于他们获得学位。除了与项目中的每一位研究人员互动外，西南大学的学生还将与研究生广泛互动，这些研究生将在一对一的教学和指导方面获得宝贵的经验。该项目的研究人员还将每年向西南大学生物技术项目的所有参与者做报告，让该项目中的所有学生--其中许多人来自贫困家庭--了解STEM领域的职业选择。这些研究产生的结果将被广泛传播并开发为一种工具，教师可以使用它来向本科生说明细菌界成员所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发芽的新过程进行分裂，细菌的其他成员的子集也是如此。经历极化萌发的细菌不表达FtsZ蛋白，这对绝大多数细菌用作细胞分裂机制的二元分裂过程至关重要。控制FtsZ缺失细菌细胞分裂的调控事件尚不清楚，本研究项目中的研究将定义支配极化萌发的潜在分子机制。具体地说，该项目将确定磷脂在细胞分裂期间衣原体引起的膜曲率变化中所起的作用。这项研究还将确定磷脂在调节极化萌发细胞中膜和胞质蛋白的定位方面的作用。该项目将汇集来自多个机构的具有不同和互补专业知识的研究人员，以定义调节衣原体用来分裂的极化萌发过程中的离散步骤的分子机制。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.