{"id":578,"date":"2025-07-15T18:29:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T16:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/?p=578"},"modified":"2025-07-15T18:29:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T16:29:22","slug":"new-research-how-e-coli-reinforces-and-organizes-its-division-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/new-research-how-e-coli-reinforces-and-organizes-its-division-site\/","title":{"rendered":"New Research: How\u00a0E. coli\u00a0Reinforces and Organizes Its Division Site"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We are excited to share two recent studies that reveal how\u00a0<em>E. coli<\/em>\u00a0bacteria remodel their cell envelope architecture and fortify it during cell division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In our latest\u00a0<em>bioRxiv<\/em>\u00a0preprint, we uncovered a specialized role for the cell wall synthase\u00a0<strong>PBP1b<\/strong>\u00a0in reinforcing the\u00a0<em>E. coli<\/em>\u00a0division site. Using\u00a0<strong><em>in situ<\/em> cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET)<\/strong>, atomic force microscopy, and live-cell imaging, we show that PBP1b forms a wedge-shaped peptidoglycan structure that helps prevent osmotic rupture, acting independently of its usual activator LpoB. This reveals a new, specialized function of PBP1b and suggests similar mechanisms might be at work in other bacteria.<br>\ud83d\udc49 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2025.04.02.646830v1\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2025.04.02.646830v1\">Read the preprint here!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In another exciting project published in\u00a0<em>PNAS<\/em>, we combined theoretical modeling and cryo-ET to demonstrate how mechanical stress guides\u00a0<em>E. coli<\/em>\u00a0division. Our lab contributed critical\u00a0<strong><em>in situ<\/em> cryo-ET data<\/strong>\u00a0that helped visualize how stress and growth patterns shape cellular architecture during cell division.<br>\ud83d\udc49\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.2424441122\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.2424441122\">Read the paper here!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These studies highlight the power of interdisciplinary approaches, merging structural biology, physics, and microbiology, to uncover fundamental mechanisms of bacterial cell division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are excited to share two recent studies that reveal how\u00a0E. coli\u00a0bacteria remodel their cell envelope architecture and fortify it during cell division. In our latest\u00a0bioRxiv\u00a0preprint, we uncovered a specialized &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002765,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/navarrolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}