Research
Bacterial cytoskeleton and interacting proteins in polarity oscillations and chemotaxis
Myxococcus xanthus undergoes cell polarity oscillations in response to environmental cues during its motility. Hence, it serves as an ideal system for understanding active processes of localization of macromolecular complexes within the cell upon sensing an environmental signal.
Research highlights:​
-
Identification of a di-HAMP domain in a cytoplasmic chemoreceptor FrzCD from Myxococcus xanthus and its role in chemosensory array formation. Jazleena, Das, Guiseppi, et al., mBio 2025
-
Mechanism of GTPase activation of a prokaryotic small Ras-like GTPase MglA by MglB dimer. Chakraborty et al., JBC 2024
-
Demonstration of GAP-only activity of MglB on another small Ras-like GTPase SofG. Kanade et al., FEBS J 2020
-
Characterization of a prokaryotic small Ras-like GTPase MglA and its regulator MglB led to the identification of a novel allosteric mechanism for GTPase activity. MglB functions both as a GAP and GEF. Baranwal et al., PLOS Biology 2019
-
Discovery of a unique DNA binding property for the cytoplasmic methyl accepting chemosensory protein (MCP) FrzCD. Moine et al., PLOS Genetics 2017
Interfilament interactions of the bacterial cytoskeleton in shape determination and motility
Spiroplasma is a helical cell wall-less bacterium. Current models on cell shape determination of cell-walled bacteria propose a mechanism based on interplay of cytoskeleton and cell wall synthesis machinery. Spiroplasma possesses a distinct shape and prominent number of cytoskeletal proteins (5 paralogs of bacterial actin MreB, a cytoskeletal protein of novel fold Fibril, FtsZ and FtsA). Hence it serves as an ideal model system for understanding cytoskeleton-driven mechanism of cell shape determination, cell division and motility.
Research highlights:
-
Characterization and filament organization of MreB. Pande et al., J Cell Biol 2022 ​
-
Characterization of Fibril. Harne and Gayathri, iScience 2022
-
Demonstration of the direct role of MreB5 in helical shape determination. Harne et al., Curr Biol 2020
Sequence and structural analysis of nucleotide-binding proteins
Research highlights:
-
Analysis of myosin motor domain has led to the structural basis for defective function of many myosin mutations identified during genetic experiments in fission yeast. Palani et al., Curr Biol 2017; Palani et al., J Cell Sci 2018; Zambon et al., MBoC 2020
-
Identification of a novel Walker B motif in prokaryotic GTPases. Kanade et al., JMB 2020
Sequence and structural analysis of cell division proteins
Research highlights:
​​
-
Discovery of novel membrane binding and cholesterol sensing motif in Mycoplasma genitalium FtsZ. Dutta et al., Biochemistry 2025
-
Structural analysis of FtsZ filament assembly. Chakraborty et al., JBC 2024
-
Mechanistic insights on the binding of FtsZ inhibitor PC190723. Sharma et al., Mol Biol Cell 2023; Poddar et al., Cytoskeleton 2024
Model Organisms
Two model systems currently established in the lab include a soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus and a helical mollicute Spiroplasma.
Tools
Structural biology (X-ray crystallography and electron cryomicroscopy), biochemical and biophysical tools and fluorescence microscopy are used to capture the structure and dynamics of macromolecular assemblies at both spatial and temporal resolutions.