The Rosalind Franklin Institute is welcoming Professor Jeff Errington FMedSci FRS, from the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, on Monday 21 October from 10:30.

To watch the seminar online, please sign up via the link below.

RAL site pass holders are welcome to attend in person in the Franklin’s first floor Hub. To join in person, please arrive in the R113 Franklin foyer at least 5 minutes before the start of the seminar and a member of the team will let you into the building.

Title:

L-form (cell-wall-deficient) bacteria: from recurrent infection to antibiotic mechanisms

Abstract:

Some of our most effective antibiotics work by interfering with synthesis of the bacteria cell wall. The wall is an excellent target for antibiotics as it is an essential structure in most bacteria with no equivalent target in human cells. Somewhat surprisingly, under isosmotic conditions, many bacteria can survive loss of their cell wall and grow in a state known as the “L-form”. L-forms have a number of unusual properties, not least that they do not require the normally essential FtsZ-based division machine and instead proliferate by a strange membrane blebbing or tubulation mechanism. My lab has pioneered modern molecular and cellular studies of L-forms.

The presentation will provide an overview of our current understanding of L-form biology, focusing on their possible role in persistent or recurrent infection. Our work on L-forms has also provided new insights into how cell-wall-active antibiotics actually kill bacteria.

Biography:

Jeff Errington is a bacterial cell biologist who mapped the regulatory pathways that control asymmetric cell division in the spore-forming Bacillus subtilis. His discoveries have implications for the control of cell division and cell shape across the living world, and have revealed potential targets for new classes of antibiotics. Read more here.