Structural and functional characterization of proteins involved in bacterial cell growth and division

In my Ph.D. project I focus attention on proteins involved in cell wall division and regulation of revival from dormancy in different kind of bacteria. Ph.D. thesis consists in two parts. PART I describes structural and biochemical studies on Resuscitation Promoting factor Interacting Protein A RipA, an enzyme essential for cell division in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We have investigated RipA function by combining atomic structure characterization, circular dichroism (CD), fluorescence spectroscopy and mass spectroscopy. PART II describes structural and functional investigations on two proteins involved in regulation of cell wall division and resuscitation form dormancy, the serine/threonine kinases PrkC from Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis and the Penicillin Binding Protein PonA2 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis.