Defense Date
11-10-2003
Graduation Date
Fall 2003
Availability
Immediate Access
Submission Type
thesis
Degree Name
MS
Department
Biological Sciences
Committee Chair
Joseph R. McCormick
Committee Member
Edward Weisberg
Committee Member
John S. Doctor
Committee Member
Nancy Trun
Keywords
cell division, S. coelicolor
Abstract
Streptomyces coelicolor, a gram-positive bacterium containing division genes that are dispensable for growth and viability. ftsZ encodes the earliest acting cell division protein in prokaryotes. In S. coelicolor a mutation at codon 275 in ftsZ (ftsZ25), changes an alanine to a valine causing a block in division. Using a homology model of the crystal structure of FtsZ, I hypothesized that changing another amino acid having direct interaction with amino acid 275 might restore function. The structure-directed mutation changed a leucine to a valine at codon 259. The double mutation did not restore division to the organism; this change alone also affected cell division in a negative way. Alternatively, I used two random mutagenesis approaches. One, a chemical mutagen, hydroxylamine yielded no significant results in preliminary experiments. The second way was through the use of a mutator strain form which I isolated two suppressors of ftsZ25 that partially restore division.
Format
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Ciccone, C. (2003). Isolation of Intragenic Suppressor Mutations of a Dominant-Negative ftsZ Allele (Master's thesis, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/413