Exhibition Gallery

Vibrio cholerae, the pathogen that causes the epidemic diarrheal disease cholera, uses its curvature to penetrate intestinal mucosa and cause disease. Here, a green fluorescent protein was fused to the curvature determinant (CrvA-msfGFP), and cells were stained red, allowing easy visualization of CrvA. In order to pinpoint the localization of CrvA, each cell's unique shape was reconstructed in 3D (triangular meshes, in white). CrvA-msfGFP was then mapped to these reconstructions (blue to yellow colormap), demonstrating that CrvA localizes to the inner (saddle-shaped) face of the cell. Each individual cell is about 1 micrometer long.

Recovering the Lost Spatial Dimension of Cholera Cells

Thomas M. Bartlett (graduate student), Benjamin P. Bratton (postdoc)

Department of Molecular Biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics

Vibrio cholerae, the pathogen that causes the epidemic diarrheal disease cholera, uses its curvature to penetrate intestinal mucosa and cause disease. Here, a green fluorescent protein was fused to the curvature determinant (CrvA-msfGFP), and cells were stained red, allowing easy visualization of CrvA. In order to pinpoint the localization of CrvA, each cell’s unique shape was reconstructed in 3D (triangular meshes, in white). CrvA-msfGFP was then mapped to these reconstructions (blue to yellow colormap), demonstrating that CrvA localizes to the inner (saddle-shaped) face of the cell. Each individual cell is about 1 micrometer long.