[Academic] Biophysics Seminar: Seamus Holden, 26th September 2018

[Gail McConnell]

Dear all,

Seamus Holden (University of Newcastle) will give a Biophysics Seminar on 26th September at 12:00-13:00 in JA5.04. Details below, and all welcome.

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Understanding bacterial cell division with fancy microscopy, microfabrication and algorithms
Seamus Holden, University of Newcastle

Despite decades of research, how the bacterial cell division machinery physically cuts the cell in two remains unclear. The essential tubulin homologue FtsZ is central to division, but its mechanistic role – recruiter, scaffold, force generator or guide – has remained unknown.

We recently developed a nanofabrication-based approach for vertical immobilization of rod-shaped bacteria, which greatly improves the performance of cell division imaging by allowing us to look top-down on the cell division plane. Using this approach, we discovered that the essential cytoskeletal protein FtsZ forms motile treadmilling polymers in live B. subtilis cells, which circle around the division site [1].

Together with collaborators, we found that FtsZ treadmilling drives septal synthesis and cell constriction in B. subtilis [1]. FtsZ treadmilling furthermore sets the rate of both synthase motion, cell wall synthesis and constriction rate. This establishes a new physical model for cell division where individual motile FtsZ-filament/ PG synthase complexes build the division septum, driven by FtsZ treadmilling.

High quality microscopy requires high quality image processing software. I will also discuss our recent community-wide effort to develop realistic 3D super-resolution microscopy simulations and assess the quality of 3D super-resolution microscopy software. This allows microscopists to easily choose the best 3D super-resolution microscopy software, and developers to rationally direct future efforts.

[1]         A.W. Bisson-Filho et al., Science 355 (2017) 739–743.
[2]         D. Sage et al, bioRxiv (2018).



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Professor Gail McConnell
Department of Physics
University of Strathclyde
107 Rottenrow
Glasgow G4 0NG
United Kingdom

Tel: 00 44 141 548 4805
Email: g.mcconnell at strath.ac.uk<mailto:g.mcconnell at strath.ac.uk>
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