Essential bacterial functions encoded by gene pairs.

To address the need for new antibacterials, a number of bacterial genomes have been systematically disrupted to identify essential genes. Such programs have focused on the disruption of single genes and may have missed functions encoded by gene pairs or multiple genes. In this work, we hypothesized that we could predict the identity of pairs of proteins within one organism that have the same function.

Novel inhibitors of bacterial cytokinesis identified by a cell-based antibiotic screening assay.

The continuous emergence of antibiotic resistance demands that novel classes of antibiotics continue to be developed. The division machinery of bacteria is an attractive target because it comprises seven or more essential proteins that are conserved almost throughout the bacteria but are absent from humans. We describe the development of a cell-based assay for inhibitors of cell division and its use to isolate a new inhibitor of FtsZ protein, a key player in the division machinery.