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
Immunofluorescent microscopy of FtsZ C-Terminal Linker Varients in Bacillus subtilis

First Rotation: Levin Lab

Immunofluorescent microscopy of FtsZ C-Terminal Linker Varients in Bacillus subtilis

FtsZ is an essential cell division protein that forms ring like structures mid-cell and acts as a scaffold for cell division machinery. FtsZ is a tubulin like protein that consists of a GTP binding domain, an intrinsically disordered linker domain referred to as the C terminal Linker (CTL), and a grappling hook peptide. The CTL is not conserved in primary sequence or length, but is necessary for cell division. Kappa, a measure of charge distribution, is highly conserved among CTLs. The goal of this project was to determine the extent to which Kappa plays a tole in CTL function and therefore FtsZ function. During my rotation I used immunofluorescent microscopy to visualize the effects of Kappa variance on FtsZ ring formation.

Second Rotation: Kutluay Lab

In progress

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