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About Cara
Cara Boutte is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Texas at Arlington. She earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Chicago in 2011. Subsequently, she served as a postdoctoral fellow in Immunology and Infectious Disease at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health from 2011 to 2017, where she began her investigations into cell wall regulation in mycobacteria. In September 2017, she joined the University of Texas at Arlington as an Assistant Professor in Biology and advanced to Associate Professor. Her research centers on the molecular mechanisms governing bacterial cell surfaces, which protect against environmental stresses while facilitating nutrient uptake, growth, and division. The Boutte Lab employs forward and reverse genetics, biochemistry, and microscopy to study mycobacterial cell walls—thick, multi-layered structures unique for their polar elongation in Actinobacteria. Key projects examine proteins essential for polar growth under stress conditions and the assembly and regulation of the divisome during cell division, particularly how these processes respond to stressors like DNA damage or starvation, with implications for infections, immunity, and antibiotic therapies.
Boutte has secured major funding to support her work, including a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health in 2019 for the project 'Environmental regulation of cell growth and division in mycobacteria,' aimed at modeling mycobacterial cell wall responses to stress. In 2025, she received funding from UTA's Research Enhancement Program for 'Evolution of Polar Cell Wall Growth Across Bacterial Clades.' Her contributions to the field are documented in peer-reviewed publications in leading journals. Select works include 'MmpL3, Wag31 and PlrA are involved in coordinating polar growth with peptidoglycan metabolism and nutrient availability' (Journal of Bacteriology, 2024, with Arejan NH et al.); 'PlrA (MSMEG_5223) is an essential polar growth regulator in Mycobacterium smegmatis' (PLOS ONE, 2023, with Quintanilla SY et al.); 'Polar protein Wag31 both activates and inhibits cell wall metabolism at the poles and septum' (Frontiers in Microbiology, 2023, with Arejan NH et al.); 'Mycobacterial Serine/Threonine phosphatase PstP is phospho-regulated and localized to mediate control of cell wall metabolism' (Molecular Microbiology, 2022, with Shamma F and Rego EH); and 'Comprehensive Essentiality Analysis of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Genome via Saturating Transposon Mutagenesis' (mBio, 2017, with DeJesus MA et al.). These studies advance understanding of antibiotic tolerance in pathogens like Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
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