Draft 4/17

This was for the talk I attended at Harvard. The results showed that there were many aspects as to how cells maintain a uniform rod shape as they grow. One result showed that there are two main ways that new cell wall is added to the cell. The first being that new cell wall is inserted in an oriented manor, which means that filaments travel around the radius of the cell and are oriented by cell radius rudders. The second is that new cell wall is inserted in an unoriented manor, this means that cell wall is inserted randomly by enzymes. Another result showed that when mreBCD was upregulated the cell rod width decreased and it became skinnier, if mreBCD was downregulated then the cell rod width increased and it became fatter. The salt shock showed that cells with upregulated mreBCD were able to maintain their rod form for a longer time than cells with lower levels. An additional result showed that when the cells were provided additional nutrients they were able to grow into a rod shape quicker. A similar result showed that when the cell was essentially tricked into thinking it had adequate nutrients it grew at the same rate showing that a kinase domain was responsible for sensing environmental nutrients.