Stanford scientists to probe inner workings of remarkab...( two daughter cells of identical size a...)

two daughter cells of identical size and shape. Microbiologists have long been fascinated with the ability of C. crescentus, which divides asymmetrically into two different daughter cells - a small ``swarmer`` cell equipped with a tiny tail that allows it to swim, and a larger ``stalk`` cell shaped like a lollipop on a stick. In fact, ``caulo`` is Latin for ``stalk.``

``Asymmetrical division is a fundamental biological process,`` McAdams said. ``Without it, we`d turn out to be blobs without hair, teeth and other specialized cells. C. crescentus is one of the simplest organisms we can study to understand asymmetric cell division.``

He points out that C. crescentus provides an ideal model system for studying bacterial reproduction, because it is easy to grow colonies of the bacteria that are all moving synchronously through their cell cycles.

Two co-investigators in the Stanford Microbial Cell Project - Lucy Shapiro, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology, and Charles Yanofsky, the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biological Sciences, Emeritus - have conducted pioneering research on the genes that control bacterial cell regulation.

Another co-investigator is Stanford alumnus Peter D. Karp, director of the Bioinformatics Research Group at SRI International Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif. Karp has developed powerful tools for browsing genomes and regulatory networks that will help translate genetic regulatory data gleaned from the project into a user-friendly format for the World Wide Web.

The Stanford team also will collaborate with DOE`s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory east of San Francisco, where researchers have received another DOE grant to create a cellular map detailing how proteins produced by C. crescentus interact with one another.

``To accomplish all of our goals requires a lot of people with different expertise,`` noted Michael Laub, a graduate student in developmenta
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Contact: Mark Shwartz
mshwartz@stanford.edu
650-723-9296
Stanford University
9-Nov-2001

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