Lisa Baumoel

A new research progress from our lab was just published in FEMS Microbiology Letters. The article, currently available as the accepted manuscript, is entitled “Deletion of PimE mannosyltransferase results in increased copper sensitivity in Mycobacterium smegmatis”.

In this study, we discovered that the high concentration of copper present in Middlebrook 7H10 medium, a standard agar-based growth medium for mycobacteria research, is actually toxic to the pimE gene deletion mutant. We attributed this defect to the defective permeability barrier function of the mutant’s cell envelope.

Bill Eagen

This work was led by two first authors Bill Eagen and Lisa Baumoel. Bill is a current senior undergraduate. Lisa was an undergraduate researcher, who continued in my lab to complete the fifth-year accelerated Master’s program.

Congratulations to Bill and Lisa!

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Stress management is important for everyone including mycobacteria. Mycobacteria must rearrange their life-building activities to respond to life-threatening situations. The Intracellular Membrane Domain (IMD) is an area of mycobacterial membrane, where many important life-building activities take place. In our new report published in mBio, we showed that the IMD dynamically rearranges its locations within the mycobacterial cell when the cells are exposed to stressful conditions such as antibiotic treatment. We propose that this IMD rearrangement is important for stress management.

Bill was awarded an honors research grant from the Commonwealth Honors College. Congratulations!

The spring semester started today, with two new members joining the lab. Ian Sparks, a PhD rotation student, and James Brenner, a sophomore Microbiology major. Welcome!

A new septum associated protein, SepIVA, was recently reported by our collaborator, Cara Boutte at University of Texas Arlington. This protein shows a subcellular localization pattern that looks similar to proteins associated with the Intracellular Membrane Domain (IMD), formerly known as the PMf. Interestingly, however, SepIVA enriches at the septum when the cell divides.  There are many other new septum-associated proteins reported in this study. Very exciting! Click here to read more.