Conditional Lethality, Division Defects, Membrane Involution, and Endocytosis inmreandmrdShape Mutants ofEscherichia coli

Bendezú, Felipe O.; Boer, Piet A. J. de

doi:10.1128/jb.01322-07

Cited by 193 publications

(292 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…The MreBCD complex in rod-shaped bacteria localizes along the membrane, acting as a spatial organizer of various processes (7,9,(30)(31)(32)(33). In Escherichia coli, MreB (an actin-like molecule) is required to regulate phospholipid and membrane biosynthesis (31). However, MreB is missing in S. aureus and other coccal cells, whereas MreC and MreD are present (9).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…PlsY and/or CdsA seemed unlikely candidates as organizers of the patterned distribution, as did FtsZ, despite its link to the localization of phospholipid synthases (29). The MreBCD complex in rod-shaped bacteria localizes along the membrane, acting as a spatial organizer of various processes (7,9,(30)(31)(32)(33). In Escherichia coli, MreB (an actin-like molecule) is required to regulate phospholipid and membrane biosynthesis (31).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Supramolecular structure in the membrane of Staphylococcus aureus

García‐Lara

Weihs

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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All life demands the temporal and spatial control of essential biological functions. In bacteria, the recent discovery of coordinating elements provides a framework to begin to explain cell growth and division. Here we present the discovery of a supramolecular structure in the membrane of the coccal bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, which leads to the formation of a largescale pattern across the entire cell body; this has been unveiled by studying the distribution of essential proteins involved in lipid metabolism (PlsY and CdsA). The organization is found to require MreD, which determines morphology in rod-shaped cells. The distribution of protein complexes can be explained as a spontaneous pattern formation arising from the competition between the energy cost of bending that they impose on the membrane, their entropy of mixing, and the geometric constraints in the system. Our results provide evidence for the existence of a self-organized and nonpercolating molecular scaffold involving MreD as an organizer for optimal cell function and growth based on the intrinsic self-assembling properties of biological molecules.T he perpetuation of all cellular life requires the temporal and spatial management of essential biological functions, within the morphological framework characteristic of a specific organism. The underlying processes, which determine cell shape, are intimately intertwined with cell division and constitute pivotal issues for cell biology; their coordination in prokaryotes is mediated through counterparts of eukaryotic actin, tubulin, and intermediate filaments in addition to other specific components (1, 2). Several of these apparent cytoskeletal elements capitalize on their membrane binding properties, assembling along the longitudinal axis, between the poles of rod-shaped cells; they participate in many processes, including selection of the division site via the Min system and other components (3, 4); guidance and control of the cell wall biosynthetic machinery responsible for cell size, polarity, and shape through the actin-like protein MreB (5-11); and chromosome partitioning into daughter cells using another actin-like filament, ParM (12).Despite this set of highly coordinated mechanisms, it has recently been shown that otherwise rod-and cocci-shaped bacteria can exist as largely spherical wall-less forms known as L-forms, with the capacity to divide (13). Importantly, the division of L-forms of the rod-shaped bacterium Bacillus subtilis is freed from the requirement of the classical tubulin-like division component FtsZ (14). L-forms appear to divide by scission after blebbing, tabulation, or vesiculation dependent on an altered rate of membrane biosynthesis (15); this harks back perhaps to a more evolutionary primitive mechanism permitting cellular proliferation. Thus, are there underlying organizational mechanisms that exist, independent of apparent cytoskeletal elements? The fluid mosaic model proposing the free diffusion of membrane proteins through the lipids has been challenged by growing e...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supramolecular structure in the membrane of Staphylococcus aureus

García‐Lara

Weihs

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The deletion of MreB, or the inhibition of MreB polymerization using the drug A22, leads to spherical cells that are prone to lysis and have an altered cell wall structure (5,8,9). During elongation, we observed that MreB has a preference to localize to regions of small or even negative local Gaussian curvature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

MreB Orientation Correlates with Cell Diameter in Escherichia coli

Ouzounov

Nguyen

Bratton

et al. 2016

Biophysical Journal

127

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Bacteria have remarkably robust cell shape control mechanisms. For example, cell diameter only varies by a few percent across a given population. The bacterial actin homolog, MreB, is necessary for establishment and maintenance of rod shape although the detailed properties of MreB that are important for shape control remained unknown. In this study, we perturb MreB in two ways: by treating cells with the polymerization-inhibiting drug A22 and by creating point mutants in mreB. These perturbations modify the steady-state diameter of cells over a wide range, from 790 5 30 nm to 1700 5 20 nm. To determine which properties of MreB are important for diameter control, we correlated structural characteristics of fluorescently tagged MreB polymers with cell diameter by simultaneously analyzing three-dimensional images of MreB and cell shape. Our results indicate that the helical pitch angle of MreB inversely correlates with the cell diameter of Escherichia coli. Other correlations between MreB and cell diameter are not found to be significant. These results demonstrate that the physical properties of MreB filaments are important for shape control and support a model in which MreB organizes the cell wall growth machinery to produce a chiral cell wall structure and dictate cell diameter.

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“…5B). Localization of the over-produced membrane-bound GFPRodZ Ec revealed membrane invaginations and vesicles in the misshapen cells, strikingly reminiscent of the intracytoplasmic vesicles and membrane involutions observed in ⌬mreB cells (29). Both deletion and over-expression phenotypes show that cell morphogenesis in E. coli, as in C. crescentus, is severely impaired when RodZ function is altered.…”

Section: Conservation Of Rodz Function and Mreb-driven Localization Imentioning

confidence: 96%

“…5D), which was also observed in normal-sized cells (not shown). Deletion of MreB [in the presence of FtsZ over-production to support viability (16,29,30)] resulted in dispersion of GFP-RodZ Ec around the membrane (Fig. 5E).…”

Section: Conservation Of Rodz Function and Mreb-driven Localization Imentioning

confidence: 99%