Rebecca Collins
IUUR STEM Summer Research Program
Major: Biotechnology
Mentors: Blake Peterson and Julia van Kessel
Vibrio campbellii is a Gram-negative marine bacterium. V. campbellii contains a single polar flagellum that aids in movement and that is controlled by a three-tiered hierarchy of genes. One of the genes that has been found to be a regulator in other Vibrion is FlrA, but the nature of this protein in V. campbellii is still unclear. We aimed to determine the role of FlrA in V. campbellii by studying the effects of point mutations in the flagellar gene flrA on the motility and flagellar structure of V. campbellii because of the important relationship between pathogenesis and motility. To study this, we reconstructed point mutations in several background strains so that their motility could be studied in a motility assay. The motility assay showed that the point mutations (A126E and W44R) resulted in no change in motility. This suggests that the addition of the mutated flrA gene was not enough to compensate for the loss of flrA and/or flrC. We also constructed a novel reporter to study the transcription of FlgK, another flagellar gene.
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