Coordinating Developmental Gene Expression in Myxococcus xanthus

安东尼·G GarzaIOS-0950976协调黄色粘球菌的发育基因表达大多数细菌生活在有组织的多细胞群落中，称为生物膜。 生物膜与人类的许多重要问题有关：生物膜污染水源、医疗设备和工业机械，生物膜导致许多持续性感染。 微生物学的一个基本目标是了解这些有趣而重要的细菌群落是如何发展的。 最近，很明显，细菌使用许多保守的设计原则来构建生物膜。 也就是说，细胞产生细胞外信号来传达关于细胞密度和细胞位置的信息，并且该信息用于调节发育基因的时间和空间表达。 本项目主要研究黄色粘球菌发育基因的调控。 饿了，M。苍耳属形成含有细胞薄垫和多细胞子实体结构的生物膜。 增强子结合蛋白（EBP）级联反应被设计为响应多种细胞外信号，用于调节许多发育基因。 该项目的长期目标是了解该调节网络如何协调发育基因表达，以及最终如何促进生物膜的组装。 EBP Nla 4在级联的前端发挥作用，调节进入发展。 该项目的目的是了解Nla 4如何帮助细胞度过发育的这一关键时刻。 具体而言，该项目旨在寻找Nla 4靶基因，了解Nla 4如何识别靶启动子，并确定这些靶基因是否对发育重要。 类似于EBP级联的调节网络似乎很可能是制造生物膜的细菌中的一个共同主题，因为它们还必须处理各种信号信息以正确调节其发育基因。 因此，我们相信这个项目将导致一个基因调控的模型，是相关的许多细菌系统。

Anthony G. GarzaIOS-0950976Coordinating Developmental Gene Expression in Myxococcus xanthus Most bacteria live in organized multicellular communities called biofilms. Biofilms have been linked to a variety of problems important to humans: biofilms contaminate water supplies, medical equipment, and industrial machinery, and biofilms cause many persistent infections. A fundamental goal in microbiology is to understand how these interesting and important bacterial communities develop. Recently, it has become apparent that bacteria use a number of conserved design principles to build a biofilm. Namely, cells produce extracellular signals to communicate information about cell density and cell position and this information is used to regulate the temporal and spatial expression of developmental genes. This project focuses on the regulation of developmental genes in Myxococcus xanthus. When starving, M. xanthus forms a biofilm containing a thin mat of cells and multicellular fruiting body structures. A cascade of enhancer binding proteins (EBPs), which is designed to respond to a variety of extracellular signals, is used to regulate many developmental genes. The long-term goal of this project is to understand how this regulatory network coordinates developmental gene expression and, ultimately, how it promotes the assembly of a biofim. The EBP Nla4 functions at the front end of the cascade, regulating the entry into development. The aim of this project is to understand how Nla4 helps cells navigate through this critical juncture in development. Specifically, this project aims to find Nla4 target genes, to understand how Nla4 recognizes target promoters and to determine whether these target genes are important for development. It seems likely that regulatory networks analogous to the EBP cascade will be a common theme in bacteria that make biofilms, since they must also process a variety of signal information to properly regulate their developmental genes. Therefore, we believe that this project will lead to a model for gene regulation that is pertinent to many bacterial systems.