Protein Gas Vesicles of Bacillus megaterium as Enhancers of Ultrasound-Induced Transcriptional Regulation

Our colleague, Prof. Rok Romih, has co-authored an article "Protein Gas Vesicles of

Bacillus megaterium as Enhancers of Ultrasound-Induced Transcriptional Regulation",

published in ACS Nano journal. The results of the study emphasize the significant

potential of gas vesicles as effective acoustic enhancers for ultrasound-based cell

stimulation and their use in non-invasive cell manipulation.

Gas vesicles occur in diverse aquatic bacteria as they are used to modulate the cell's

buoyancy and modify the cell's position in the water column. Gas vesicles are cylindrical

gas-filled structures, assembled entirely of proteins, which are encoded by large gene

cluster. Within the article, Prof. Romih provided electron microscopy images of bacteria

expressing gas vesicles from plasmids with knocked out genes for various gas vesicle

proteins. By this, it is shown which genes in the cluster are dispensable and which are

essential for the formation of functional gas vesicles.

For a more in-depth understanding, you can read the full article here:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.4c01498