Science, Space and Technology News 2024
New research reveals how bacterial proteins self-organize by destruction, aiding synthetic material design.
Computational simulation of FtsZ treadmilling shows the death of misaligned filaments. Credit: © Christian Vanhille Campos, Šarić lab, ISTAThe researchers developed a computational model for the assembly of a protein called FtsZ, an example of active matter. During cell division, FtsZ self-assembles into a ring structure at the center of the dividing bacterial cell. This FtsZ ring–called the bacterial division ring–was shown to help form a new ‘wall’ that separates the daughter cells.
Computational simulation and live cell imaging in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Credit: © Christian Vanhille Campos, Šarić lab, ISTA, including live cell images by Kevin D. Whitley, Holden lab Šarić adds, “Our model demonstrates that treadmilling assemblies lead to local healing of the active material. When misaligned filaments die, they contribute to a better overall assembly.” By incorporating the cell geometry and filament curvature into their model, they showed how the death of misaligned FtsZ filaments helped form the bacterial division ring.
In a similar strike of luck, relocating from University College London to ISTA allowed Šarić and her group to team up with Martin Loose, who had been working on assembling FtsZ filaments in a controlled experimental setup in vitro. They saw that the in vitro results closely matched the simulations and further confirmed the team’s computational results.
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