Rebuilding Cytokinesis One Molecule at a Time

Cells are the fundamental units of life. They make up all living things, from bacteria that live in the soil, to archea that give thermal springs their bright colors, to trees and humans. All of these cells share some common functions: they build themselves from basic building blocks, following the instructions of their genetic blueprint, and...

Expression of a gene-encoded FtsZ-based minimal machinery to drive synthetic cell division

The Christophe Danelon lab is involved in the long-term effort to construct an autonomous minimal cell using a bottom-up approach. Our goal is to achieve self-maintenance, selfreproduction, and evolution of a liposome compartment containing a minimal genome and a cell-free gene expression system. Self-reproduction requires splitting of the...

The archaeal division protein CdvB1 assembles into polymers that are depolymerized by CdvC

The Cdv proteins constitute the cell division system of the Crenarchaea, a machinery closely related to the ESCRT system of eukaryotes. Using a combination of TEM imaging and biochemical assays, we here present an in vitro study of Metallosphaera sedula CdvB1, the Cdv protein that is believed to play a major role in the constricting ring that...

Actomyosin-Driven Division of a Synthetic Cell

One of the major challenges of bottom-up synthetic biology is rebuilding a minimal cell division machinery. From a reconstitution perspective, the animal cell division apparatus is mechanically the simplest and therefore attractive to rebuild. An actin-based ring produces contractile force to constrict the membrane. By contrast, microbes and...

Cell Cycle, Filament Growth and Synchronized Cell Division in Multicellular Cable Bacteria

Cable bacteria are multicellular, Gram-negative filamentous bacteria that display a unique division of metabolic labor between cells. Cells in deeper sediment layers are oxidizing sulfide, while cells in the surface layers of the sediment are reducing oxygen. The electrical coupling of these two redox half reactions is ensured via long...

An FtsZ-centric approach to divide gene-expressing liposomes

The creation of artificial cells with the minimal set of components to exhibit self-maintenance, self-reproducibility and evolvability (in other words, to be considered alive) is one of the most exciting areas within the field of synthetic biology. Such entities, here called minimal cells, are constructed by either the top-down or bottom-up...

Molecular determinants of the Ska-Ndc80 interaction and their influence on microtubule tracking and force-coupling

Errorless chromosome segregation requires load-bearing attachments of the plus ends of spindle microtubules to chromosome structures named kinetochores. How these end-on kinetochore attachments are established following initial lateral contacts with the microtubule lattice is poorly understood. Two microtubule-binding complexes, the Ndc80 and...