Statistical Analysis of the Type 6 Secretion System in Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (360G-Wellcome-203799_Z_16_A)

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative bacterium that is a leading cause of many hospital borne infections. In particular recent research has identified the Type 6 Secretion System (T6SS) present in P. aeruginosa and has focused on the structure and mechanism of the system. This highly complex system allows P. aeruginosa to accurately penetrate adjacent cells and thus insert an array of toxins which can cause cell death or disrupt cellular pathways. Building on this work we would like to understand the T6SS from a statistical perspective. Understanding the spatial distribution and dynamics of the T6SS along the cell membrane of P. aeruginosa are amongst a number of different questions we hope to explore in this project. To achieve these targets we will use fluorescently tagged components of the T6SS mechanism as well as confocal microscopy of living P. aeruginosa, thus allowing for 3-dimensional reconstruction. These biological questions will be answered using a variaty of quantitative approaches. To extract important information from the image data a number of imaging and video preprocessing methods will need to be applied. After preprocessing the this data will be analysed using a variaty of statistical methdologies in order to provide a quantitative description.