Composition and mechanics of the Gram-positive bacterial cell wall and implications for cell division
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Most bacteria are under significant turgor pressure and surround themselves with cell walls to withstand it. This thesis mainly explores the mechanisms by which bacteria grow and divide their cell wall in the context of turgor pressure. I first discuss the plasticity and robustness of cell wall synthesis in Chapter 2 by describing the finding that the Gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus changes its cell wall composition in response to nutrient conditions. In Chapter 3, I present a collaborative study in which we characterized the cell cycle of S. aureus at single cell level and discovered a novel mechanical mechanism of daughter cell separation by which the coccoid shaped S. aureus is able to harness its turgor pressure to drive ultrafast daughter cell separation. In Chapter 4, I explore the mechanisms of daughter cell separation in a variety of bacterial species and describe the surprising observation that the fast mechanical daughter cell separation is unique to the Staphylococcaceae family in Firmicutes yet widespread in the other Gram-positive phyla Actinobacteria. In Chapter 5, I characterize the growth and division of the cell envelope in Corynebacterium and Mycobacterium, both of which polar-growing Gram-positive rods with an "outer-membrane like" mycomembrane. Finally in Chapter 6, I discuss our efforts in dissecting the roles of cell wall hydrolases in the mechanical daughter cell separation in S. aureus.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Zhou, Xiaoxue |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Chemistry. |
| Primary advisor | Theriot, Julie |
| Thesis advisor | Theriot, Julie |
| Thesis advisor | Boxer, Steven G. (Steven George), 1947- |
| Thesis advisor | Huang, Kerwyn Casey, 1979- |
| Advisor | Boxer, Steven G. (Steven George), 1947- |
| Advisor | Huang, Kerwyn Casey, 1979- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Xiaoxue Zhou. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Chemistry. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by Xiaoxue Zhou
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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