Prophage-triggered membrane vesicle formation through peptidoglycan damage in Bacillus subtilis

Masanori Toyofuku (), Gerardo Cárcamo-Oyarce, Tatsuya Yamamoto, Fabian Eisenstein, Chien-Chi Hsiao, Masaharu Kurosawa, Karl Gademann, Martin Pilhofer (), Nobuhiko Nomura and Leo Eberl ()
Additional contact information
Masanori Toyofuku: University of Tsukuba
Gerardo Cárcamo-Oyarce: University of Zürich
Tatsuya Yamamoto: University of Tsukuba
Fabian Eisenstein: Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics
Chien-Chi Hsiao: University of Zürich
Masaharu Kurosawa: University of Tsukuba
Karl Gademann: University of Zürich
Martin Pilhofer: Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics
Nobuhiko Nomura: University of Tsukuba
Leo Eberl: University of Zürich

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Bacteria release membrane vesicles (MVs) that play important roles in various biological processes. However, the mechanisms of MV formation in Gram-positive bacteria are unclear, as these cells possess a single cytoplasmic membrane that is surrounded by a thick cell wall. Here we use live cell imaging and electron cryo-tomography to describe a mechanism for MV formation in Bacillus subtilis. We show that the expression of a prophage-encoded endolysin in a sub-population of cells generates holes in the peptidoglycan cell wall. Through these openings, cytoplasmic membrane material protrudes into the extracellular space and is released as MVs. Due to the loss of membrane integrity, the induced cells eventually die. The vesicle-producing cells induce MV formation in neighboring cells by the enzymatic action of the released endolysin. Our results support the idea that endolysins may be important for MV formation in bacteria, and this mechanism may potentially be useful for the production of MVs for applications in biomedicine and nanotechnology.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00492-w 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_s41467-017-00492-w

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00492-w

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 ().