Bacterial lipid droplets bind to DNA via an intermediary protein that enhances survival under stress

Congyan Zhang, Li Yang, Yunfeng Ding, Yang Wang, Lan Lan, Qin Ma, Xiang Chi, Peng Wei, Yongfang Zhao, Alexander Steinbüchel, Hong Zhang and Pingsheng Liu ()
Additional contact information
Congyan Zhang: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Li Yang: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yunfeng Ding: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yang Wang: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Lan Lan: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qin Ma: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xiang Chi: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peng Wei: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yongfang Zhao: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Alexander Steinbüchel: Institute of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, University of Münster
Hong Zhang: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pingsheng Liu: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Lipid droplets (LDs) are multi-functional organelles consisting of a neutral lipid core surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer, and exist in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. Here we study the functions of LDs in the oleaginous bacterium Rhodococcus jostii. We show that these LDs bind to genomic DNA through the major LD protein, MLDS, which increases survival rate of the bacterial cells under nutritional and genotoxic stress. MLDS expression is regulated by a transcriptional regulator, MLDSR, that binds to the operator and promoter of the operon encoding both proteins. LDs sequester MLDSR, controlling its availability for transcriptional regulation. Our findings support the idea that bacterial LDs can regulate nucleic acid function and facilitate bacterial survival under stress.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15979 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:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15979

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

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15979

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 ().