Studies on Bacterial Pleomorphism in the Biofilm mode of growth

Abstract

Bacterial cell division is regulated by the bacterial cytoskeletal protein FtsZ/MreB/RodZ and the level of Z ring assembly. MreB actin protein is found to regulate the cell wall component peptidoglycan synthesis and insertion. The cytokinesis process also is regulated during the biofilm stage at nutrient limiting conditions. However, if the nutrients are available during normal growth of life, the cell division rates and cytokinesis will be faster to reach to the optimum density to exhibit the density dependent gene network. Thus, the objective of this study is to find out the experimental evidences that the biofilm stage of bacterial cells experiences the effect of genes which regulate cytokinesis, morphology and cell wall synthesis for varied shape and size (pleomorphism) to exhibit the coordinated gene expression such as virulence or stress tolerance and/or shift to other suitable substratum for establishing the colonization. I propose to study the link of bacterial cytoskeleton genes with the different stages of biofilm growth in bacteria.