Bactofilin-mediated organization of the ParABS chromosome segregation system in Myxococcus xanthus

Lin Lin, Manuel Osorio Valeriano, Andrea Harms, Lotte Søgaard-Andersen and Martin Thanbichler ()
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Lin Lin: Philipps University
Manuel Osorio Valeriano: Philipps University
Andrea Harms: Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology
Lotte Søgaard-Andersen: Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology
Martin Thanbichler: Philipps University

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract In bacteria, homologs of actin, tubulin, and intermediate filament proteins often act in concert with bacteria-specific scaffolding proteins to ensure the proper arrangement of cellular components. Among the bacteria-specific factors are the bactofilins, a widespread family of polymer-forming proteins whose biology is poorly investigated. Here, we study the three bactofilins BacNOP in the rod-shaped bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. We show that BacNOP co-assemble into elongated scaffolds that restrain the ParABS chromosome segregation machinery to the subpolar regions of the cell. The centromere (parS)-binding protein ParB associates with the pole-distal ends of these structures, whereas the DNA partitioning ATPase ParA binds along their entire length, using the newly identified protein PadC (MXAN_4634) as an adapter. The integrity of these complexes is critical for proper nucleoid morphology and chromosome segregation. BacNOP thus mediate a previously unknown mechanism of subcellular organization that recruits proteins to defined sites within the cytoplasm, far off the cell poles.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02015-z

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