Protein that delays cell division in bacteria may lead to the identification of new antibiotics

Scientists at Washington University have worked out how two bacterial strains delay cell division when food is abundant, an understanding that might be used to design drugs that stop division entirely

Levin lab

In a rapidly dividing chain of bacterial cells (top), constriction rings that will pinch the cells in two appear in red. The red doughnut to the bottom right of the image is a constriction ring seen head on rather than from the side. In the middle, an image of the constriction rings (red) has been overlaid on one of the cell walls (green), The bottom image shows the constriction rings (red) and the bacterial DNA (blue). Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are learning exactly how the bacteria control the assembly of the constriction rings and thus the timing of cell division.

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Creating plants that make their own fertilizer

Washington University biologists are undertaking an ambitious project to engineer tiny nitrogen-fixing devices within photosynthetic cells.

James Byard/WUSTL

Nancy Duan (left), Michelle Liberton and Lingxia Zhao are members of Himadri Pakrasi’s team, which has taken the first proof-of-principle steps toward inserting the genes needed to fix nitrogen — otherwise found only in bacteria and the bacteria-like Archae — into the cells of crop plants.

Since the dawn of agriculture, people have exercised great ingenuity to pump more nitrogen into crop fields. Farmers have planted legumes and plowed the entire crop under, strewn night soil or manure on the fields, shipped in bat dung from islands in the Pacific or saltpeter from Chilean mines and plowed in glistening granules of synthetic fertilizer made in chemical plants.

No wonder biologist Himadri Pakrasi’s team is excited by the project they are undertaking. If they succeed, the chemical apparatus for nitrogen fixation will be miniaturized, automated and relocated within the plant so nitrogen is available when and where it is needed — and only then and there.

“That would really revolutionize agriculture,” said Pakrasi, PhD, the Myron and Sonya Glassberg/Albert and Blanche Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences and director of the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Blood-clotting disorders

New center to study bleeding disorders and clot formation

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have received a $9 million grant to investigate blood-clotting disorders. From heart attacks and strokes to uncontrolled bleeding, clotting disorders cause more deaths each year in the United States than all types of cancer combined.




Strands of a protein called von Willebrand Factor (orange) play a key role in blood clotting. Secreted by cells lining the blood vessels, the strands capture platelets and initiate the formation of blood clots



“Blood clots in veins and arteries remain one of the great killers,” says principal investigator J. Evan Sadler, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Hematology. “The goal of this grant is to shorten the time between a new discovery in blood clotting or bleeding disorders and the application of that knowledge to help patients.”

Washington University is one of only five universities across the country receiving funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to support a new Translational Research Center in Thrombotic and Hemostatic Disorders.

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