Now showing items 1-6 of 6

    • The Evolution of Quorum Sensing as a Mechanism to Infer Kinship 

      Schluter, Jonas; Schoech, Armin P.; Foster, Kevin R.; Mitri, Sara (Public Library of Science, 2016)
      Bacteria regulate many phenotypes via quorum sensing systems. Quorum sensing is typically thought to evolve because the regulated cooperative phenotypes are only beneficial at certain cell densities. However, quorum sensing ...
    • Missense Mutations Allow a Sequence-Blind Mutant of SpoIIIE to Successfully Translocate Chromosomes during Sporulation 

      Bose, Baundauna; Reed, Sydney E.; Besprozvannaya, Marina; Burton, Briana M. (Public Library of Science, 2016)
      SpoIIIE directionally pumps DNA across membranes during Bacillus subtilis sporulation and vegetative growth. The sequence-reading domain (γ domain) is required for directional DNA transport, and its deletion severely impairs ...
    • Morphogenic Protein RodZ Interacts with Sporulation Specific SpoIIE in Bacillus subtilis 

      Muchová, Katarína; Chromiková, Zuzana; Bradshaw, Niels; Wilkinson, Anthony J.; Barák, Imrich (Public Library of Science, 2016)
      The first landmark in sporulation of Bacillus subtilis is the formation of an asymmetric septum followed by selective activation of the transcription factor σF in the resulting smaller cell. How the morphological transformations ...
    • Phenotypic Heterogeneity and the Evolution of Bacterial Life Cycles 

      van Gestel, Jordi; Nowak, Martin A. (Public Library of Science, 2016)
      Most bacteria live in colonies, where they often express different cell types. The ecological significance of these cell types and their evolutionary origin are often unknown. Here, we study the evolution of cell differentiation ...
    • Quantifying Clonal and Subclonal Passenger Mutations in Cancer Evolution 

      Bozic, Ivana; Gerold, Jeffrey M.; Nowak, Martin A. (Public Library of Science, 2016)
      The vast majority of mutations in the exome of cancer cells are passengers, which do not affect the reproductive rate of the cell. Passengers can provide important information about the evolutionary history of an individual ...
    • RNA Stimulates Aurora B Kinase Activity during Mitosis 

      Jambhekar, Ashwini; Emerman, Amy B.; Schweidenback, Caterina T. H.; Blower, Michael D. (Public Library of Science, 2014)
      Accurate chromosome segregation is essential for cell viability. The mitotic spindle is crucial for chromosome segregation, but much remains unknown about factors that regulate spindle assembly. Recent work implicates RNA ...