Makemson Lab
                        
                   Bacterial Bioluminescence Research

Links to Makemson's Courses:  BCH 3033 General Biochemistry (majors, Fall-11)
                                                  MCB 3020General Microbiology (majors, Fall-11)             
                                                  PCB 4233 Immunology (majors, Spring-12)
                                                  SLS 1501 First Year Experience (QBIC only, Fall)
                                     BSC 4931 Senior Seminar (majors, Spring-12)
Link to Makemson's CV

RESEARCH:
Most Recent Student Projects:
    Edgar Gutierrez Arias:  Dark mutants of Shewanella woodyi
    Jose Roble:  Minimal Bright mutants of Vibrio harveyi
    Bruce Milburn:  Cyclo-dipeptides and luminescence.

Current Interest:  the Arginine Effect.   And, assay of quorum sensing inhibitors, synthetic and those in Ginseng (Link to Recent Poster Presentations).  Quorum sensing and molecular aspects of luciferase in Shewanella, Photobacterium and Vibrio.

    Arginine was the first molecule discovered to induce luciferase synthesis (Coffee, 1967).  Nealson, Platt and Hastings (1970) showed, in a landmark paper, that the arginine effect was only operative during "Autoinduction" of luciferase synthesis.  Today, autoinduction is called "Quorum Sensing" which in Vibrio harveyi is the integration of three autoinducers (produced by the bacteria themselves) through a complex phoshorylation cascade that includes small regulatory RNA's at Lux R the master regulator of the luciferase operon (lux) and many other genes (beautiful work from the Bassler lab).  We are interested in how arginine, one of the common 20 amino acids, is able to stimulate luciferase synthesis in this system as well as the other words of the luminous bacterial communication system.

   

Luminous Bacteria on Peptone-Yeast Extract-Glycerol Seawater Agar
Both Images the same plate: left by room light, right by the bacterial luminescence.
Can you see the dark mutant colonies?

ARGININE EFFECT on Glycerol Minimal Agar (1 micromole Arg on Disk):


Left:Lights On, 0 time      Middle: Bioluminescence - 0 time    Right: Biolum after  6 hrs

Arginine Effect in HEPES Minimal Broth



The lab group:  students participating in their own research projects.  The lab is equiped with photometers (some home built), spectrophotometers, luminescence imaging (chilled CCD), PCR thermalcycler, Agarose Electrophoresis and PAGE, incubators, Luciferase assay photometer, and other biochemical/microbiologcial equipment.

Weekly lab meeting:  discussion of ancient to recent papers on bacterial bioluminescence.