Polyploidy, regular patterning of genome copies, and unusual control of DNA partitioning in the Lyme disease spirochete

Constantin N. Takacs, Jenny Wachter, Yingjie Xiang, Zhongqing Ren, Xheni Karaboja, Molly Scott, Matthew R. Stoner, Irnov Irnov, Nicholas Jannetty, Patricia A. Rosa, Xindan Wang () and Christine Jacobs-Wagner ()
Additional contact information
Constantin N. Takacs: Stanford University
Jenny Wachter: National Institutes of Health
Yingjie Xiang: Yale University
Zhongqing Ren: Indiana University
Xheni Karaboja: Indiana University
Molly Scott: Microbial Sciences Institute, Yale West Campus
Matthew R. Stoner: The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Irnov Irnov: Stanford University
Nicholas Jannetty: The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Patricia A. Rosa: National Institutes of Health
Xindan Wang: Indiana University
Christine Jacobs-Wagner: Stanford University

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-22

Abstract: Abstract Borrelia burgdorferi, the tick-transmitted spirochete agent of Lyme disease, has a highly segmented genome with a linear chromosome and various linear or circular plasmids. Here, by imaging several chromosomal loci and 16 distinct plasmids, we show that B. burgdorferi is polyploid during growth in culture and that the number of genome copies decreases during stationary phase. B. burgdorferi is also polyploid inside fed ticks and chromosome copies are regularly spaced along the spirochete’s length in both growing cultures and ticks. This patterning involves the conserved DNA partitioning protein ParA whose localization is controlled by a potentially phage-derived protein, ParZ, instead of its usual partner ParB. ParZ binds its own coding region and acts as a centromere-binding protein. While ParA works with ParZ, ParB controls the localization of the condensin, SMC. Together, the ParA/ParZ and ParB/SMC pairs ensure faithful chromosome inheritance. Our findings underscore the plasticity of cellular functions, even those as fundamental as chromosome segregation.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34876-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-34876-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34876-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().