ProfessorJeffery Errington

Errington's early interests concerned fundamental questions of developmental biology, using endospore formation in Bacillus subtilis as a simple and highly tractable model system. After solving some of the key questions posed by this model, including the generation of asymmetry, and cell fate determination, the lab turned its attention to fundamental questions about the cell cycle, including cell division and chromosome segregation.

Errington's lab were pioneers in the application of digital fluorescence imaging to the study of bacterial structure and function during the 1990s. In 2000, the lab made the seminal discovery that bacterial cells use a homolgue of actin, called MreB, to guide cell wall synthesis, thereby directly determining cell shape. Further important contributions were made to understanding of cell wall synthesis in bacteria.

Another pivotal and highly influential discovery came from studies on cell wall deficient "L-form" bacteria. The lab discovered that these enigmatic and long-neglected cell types were remarkable in their mechanism of proliferation. In particular, they become completely independent of the ancient, highly conserved and normally essential FtsZ-based cell division machine. Instead, they divide by a relatively haphazard mechanism involving membrane blebbing and vesiculation. This mechanism likely provides insights into how primitive cells proliferated at the dawn of life on earth. Critically, the work on L-forms has provided evidence supporting their role as important contributors to a range of recurrent or persistent infections. It has indirectly also led to new insights into the mechanisms of cell killing by crucial beta-lactam antibiotics, such as penicillins and cephalosporins.

Recently, a long-standing interest in antibiotic discovery has led to a big effort to study the molecular genetics, chemistry and mode of action of natural product molecules made by actinobacteria, and to harness the outcomes of this work for future drug discovery.