Defense Date

6-15-2006

Graduation Date

Summer 2006

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

thesis

Degree Name

MS

Department

Biological Sciences

Committee Chair

Joseph R. McCormick

Committee Member

Jana Patton-Vogt

Committee Member

Nancy Trun

Keywords

Aerial Filaments, Cell Division, C-terminal Core Domain, FtsZ, Intragenic Suppression, Streptomyces coelicolor

Abstract

FtsZ is the earliest known acting protein in the prokaryotic division machine. In Streptomyces coelicolor, mutations in ftsZ result in hyphae that cannot support division and the formation of uninucleoid spores. Part of this study focused on isolating intragenic suppressors to the ftsZ(A275V) mutation to investigate the function of the C-Terminal Domain of the protein. To date, eight intragenic suppressors of A275V have been isolated, three in this study. Their distribution in FtsZ is scattered, although there seems to be a preference for mutations that are near the GTP-binding domain. Also, the function of the highly conserved C-Terminal Core Domain of FtsZ was investigated using a similar strategy, but no intragenic suppressor mutations were isolated. Finally, a development-specific promoter tool was created to allow the expression of an ftsZ allele in aerial filaments alone. One can now express any ftsZ allele to visualize the division phenotype during sporulation septation.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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