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Cellular Interfaces Seminar: Sculpting a helical cell wall less bacteria, Dr Gayathri Pananghat, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, India
Abstract: Spiroplasma is a unique helical bacterium without a cell wall. The cytoskeletal proteins of Spiroplasma, including 5 paralogs of the bacterial actin MreB and fibril, a cytoskeletal protein of novel fold, help it achieve its unique shape. The cytoskeletal ribbon formed also functions as its motility machinery. The current understanding in the field for bacterial shape determination and division is based on studies carried out on cell walled bacteria, in which the peptidoglycan synthesis machinery plays an important role along with the cytoskeleton. Understanding the action of the bacterial cytoskeletal proteins MreB and FtsZ in Spiroplasma will help in unravelling the fundamental mechanism of cytoskeletal function in shape and division in the absence of peptidoglycan synthesis. Our insights on shape determination, motility and division based on in vitro reconstitution of the protein complexes on liposomes will be presented.