Publications by authors named "Andrew T F Liew"
After is phagocytosed, it resides in an acidic vacuole. Its cytoplasm acidifies to pH 5.6; acidification activates pathogenicity island 2 (SPI-2).
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- Bacterial cell division requires precise coordination between chromosome segregation and cell division to ensure DNA is evenly distributed to progeny.
- Coccoid bacteria divide in three orthogonal planes, necessitating unique spatial regulation compared to rod-shaped bacteria.
- Research revealed that the protein DnaK interacts with FtsZ and other divisome components, indicating that DivIVA plays a crucial role in coordinating these processes in coccoid bacteria.
Imaging of biological samples using fluorescence microscopy has advanced substantially with new technologies to overcome the resolution barrier of the diffraction of light allowing super-resolution of live samples. There are currently three main types of super-resolution techniques - stimulated emission depletion (STED), single-molecule localization microscopy (including techniques such as PALM, STORM, and GDSIM), and structured illumination microscopy (SIM). While STED and single-molecule localization techniques show the largest increases in resolution, they have been slower to offer increased speeds of image acquisition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpatial regulation of cell division in bacteria has been a focus of research for decades. It has been well studied in two model rod-shaped organisms, Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis, with the general belief that division site positioning occurs as a result of the combination of two negative regulatory systems, Min and nucleoid occlusion. These systems influence division by preventing the cytokinetic Z ring from forming anywhere other than midcell.
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- FtsZ is a key protein in bacterial cell division, forming a ring (Z ring) that helps organize and contract the division machinery during cell splitting.
- Using advanced 3D super resolution microscopy, researchers revealed that the Z ring has a non-uniform structure, consisting of a heterogeneous distribution of FtsZ, with noticeable gaps indicating it's not a continuous structure.
- The dynamics of FtsZ don’t solely drive the Z ring's contraction for cell division; rather, it appears to help organize other division proteins, ensuring that constriction occurs only after the divisome (the complete division apparatus) is fully assembled.
We have established a plasmid-based system that enables tightly controlled gene expression and the generation of GFP fusion proteins in Staphylococcus aureus simply and rapidly. This system takes advantage of an Escherichia coli-S. aureus shuttle vector that contains the replication region of the S.
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