Periplasmic amidases in bacterial cell division.

During division, bacteria must break and rebuild the peptidoglycan wall that envelopes their cytoplasmic membrane to enable segregation of daughter cells.
In E. coli, the enzymes responsible for breaking peptidoglycan during division are periplasmic amidases that are regulated by a specialised ABC transporter-like protein (FtsEX) and its cognate adaptor protein (EnvC).
This project will address the regulation of periplasmic amidases associated with petidoglycan remodelling using a combination of X-ray crystallography and microbiological techniques. The key question to be answered is how periplasmic amidases interact with, and are activated by, FtsEX-EnvC.
The project aims to provide deep molecular understanding of amidase activity during bacterial cell division that may be useful in developing future antibacterial agents.