Anna Adkins
IUUR STEM Summer Research Program
Mentors: Blake Peterson and Julia van Kessel
Vibrio campbellii is a gram-negative bacteria that largely impacts marine life through vibriosis. The polar-sheathed flagellum is responsible for swimming motility in V. campbellii. The flagellum’s function and virulence are directly related, making the transcriptional regulation of the flagellum a field of interest. V. campbellii is a unique organism in that the flagellar regulatory gene flrA is not required for motility, as often seen in other vibrios. However, flrC, another regulatory gene, is required for motility. To further explore transcriptional regulation and motility, we created a mutant in the flrA gene to see if it would restore motility, even if the flrC gene has been deleted. The mutant, E392K, demonstrated no motility, indicating that another location in the flrA gene may be responsible for coregulating motility with flrC. In addition to designing our mutant, we also designed a flhA promoter with a Neon Green reporter for future experiments
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