On the function and interactions of bacterial flotillins

Kekem, Marijn van (2023) On the function and interactions of bacterial flotillins. Bachelor's Thesis, Biology.

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Abstract

Eukaryotic membrane compartments called lipid rafts are a well-understood structure, playing a role in a multitude of processes on the membrane surface. It was a fairly recent development that prokaryotes were found to have similar structures called functional membrane microdomains (FMMs). Functional in these FMMs are proteins called flotillins. These flotillins form homo-oligomers with high subunit turnover that are theorized to function as scaffolding proteins, specifically binding proteins which perform their function in FMMs. Flotillins also impact the fluidity of the cell membrane, although the exact mechanism with which this is done, is yet unknown. The two different flotillin proteins FloA and FloT in model organism B. subtilis, while both being flotillins, show vastly different characteristics. For one, the floA gene is constitutively expressed, while the floT gene is only expressed under starvation or end-of-growth conditions, FloA diffuses through the membrane around three times as fast as FloT, and FloA is markedly smaller than FloT. This essay compares the results of three different papers written about flotillins, concluding that what the literature described as potential binding partners either only interact for a very short time, or not at all.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis)
Supervisor name:	Scheffers, D.J.
Degree programme:	Biology
Thesis type:	Bachelor's Thesis
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	24 Aug 2023 14:33
Last Modified:	24 Aug 2023 14:33
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/31264

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