Jessie Bullock

Program: Plant and Microbial Biosciences

Current advisor: Petra Anne Levin, PhD

Undergraduate university: University of South Florida, 2018

Enrollment year: 2019

Research summary
The bacterial cytoskeletal protein FtsZ assembles cooperatively at mid cell to facilitate cell division. I am studying how two mutants in FtsZ’s intrinsically disordered linker enhance FtsZ assembly at low concentrations in vivo.

FtsZ is an essential bacterial cytoskeletal protein and tubulin homolog that coordinates cell division. FtsZ monomers bind GTP and polymerize head to tail into filaments. As monomers in the filament hydrolyze GTP, they fall off the minus end, leading to dynamic filaments. These dynamic filaments align and assemble into a ring at mid cell that recruits and scaffolds the cell division machinery. Like other cytoskeletal proteins, FtsZ monomers can only assemble once a critical concentration of protein is reached. I have identified two FtsZ mutants that are able to assemble and support division at protein levels below what should be possible for assembly. Using a range of in vivo and in vitro assays, I am investigating these mutants to better understand how FtsZ polymerization dynamics drive assemble into rings capable of supporting bacterial cell division.

Graduate publications
Shinn MK, Cohan MC, Bullock JL, Ruff KM, Levin PA, Pappu RV. 2022 Connecting sequence features within the disordered C-terminal linker of Bacillus subtilis FtsZ to functions and bacterial cell division. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 119(42):e2211178119. PMCID: PMC9586301