Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) mutants lacking the operon Rv1411c-1410c encoding a lipoprotein, Rv1411c (LprG) and a putative transporter, Rv1410c (Rv1410) are dramatically attenuated for growth in mice. Previous work ...

Scientific progress in fundamental biology has drastically transformed our ability to engineer biological systems, with diverse applications in medicine and industry, from insulin and artemisin production in prokaryotes ...

The evolution of a genome is shaped by spatial interactions at multiple scales. At the angstrom level, structural constraints on both RNA molecules and proteins contribute to the evolution of a gene sequence. Such optimized ...

The bacterial cell wall exoskeleton (or peptidoglycan) protects cells from osmotic lysis, specifies their shape, and its biosynthetic pathway is a widely-exploited antibiotic target. My thesis research focused on defining ...

Staphylococcus aureus is a gram positive coccoid pathogen that causes intractable infections in hospitals and communities around the world, and tens of thousands of people die of these infections every year. In order to ...

Mutualistic symbioses have enabled the colonization of novel habitats and niches in a large array of eukaryotic and bacterial taxa. Reliable mechanisms of symbiont transmission between host generations are necessary to ...

The study of life histories is fundamental to understanding why some organisms live for a very short time while others live for a long time, why some produce thousands of offspring while others produce one, or why some ...

In Escherichia coli, cytokinesis requires the constriction of all the cell envelope layers: the inner membrane, the peptidoglycan (PG) cell wall and the outer membrane (OM). Such dramatic cell envelope remodeling requires ...

In nature, cells must constantly sense their environment and respond appropriately. These cellular “decisions” are implemented by molecular components that can mutate and evolve. How do mutations lead to changes in cellular ...

The bacterial cell envelope is the frontline protective barrier between the cell and the environment. It is a complex multilayered structure essential for maintaining cellular integrity and plays a crucial defensive role ...