LD-transpeptidation is crucial for fitness and polar growth in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

Autor: Aliashkevich A; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden., Guest T; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden., Alvarez L; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden., Gilmore MC; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden., Rea D; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden., Amstutz J; Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, United States of America., Mateus A; Genome Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany., Schiffthaler B; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden., Ruiz I; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden., Typas A; Genome Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany., Savitski MM; Genome Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany., Brown PJB; Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, United States of America., Cava F; Department of Molecular Biology and Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, SciLifeLab, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PLoS genetics [PLoS Genet] 2024 Oct 21; Vol. 20 (10), pp. e1011449. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 21 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011449
Abstrakt: Peptidoglycan (PG), a mesh-like structure which is the primary component of the bacterial cell wall, is crucial to maintain cell integrity and shape. While most bacteria rely on penicillin binding proteins (PBPs) for crosslinking, some species also employ LD-transpeptidases (LDTs). Unlike PBPs, the essentiality and biological functions of LDTs remain largely unclear. The Hyphomicrobiales order of the Alphaproteobacteria, known for their polar growth, have PG which is unusually rich in LD-crosslinks, suggesting that LDTs may play a more significant role in PG synthesis in these bacteria. Here, we investigated LDTs in the plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens and found that LD-transpeptidation, resulting from at least one of 14 putative LDTs present in this bacterium, is essential for its survival. Notably, a mutant lacking a distinctive group of 7 LDTs which are broadly conserved among the Hyphomicrobiales exhibited reduced LD-crosslinking and tethering of PG to outer membrane β-barrel proteins. Consequently, this mutant suffered severe fitness loss and cell shape rounding, underscoring the critical role played by these Hyphomicrobiales-specific LDTs in maintaining cell wall integrity and promoting elongation. Tn-sequencing screens further revealed non-redundant functions for A. tumefaciens LDTs. Specifically, Hyphomicrobiales-specific LDTs exhibited synthetic genetic interactions with division and cell cycle proteins, and a single LDT from another group. Additionally, our findings demonstrate that strains lacking all LDTs except one displayed distinctive phenotypic profiles and genetic interactions. Collectively, our work emphasizes the critical role of LD-crosslinking in A. tumefaciens cell wall integrity and growth and provides insights into the functional specialization of these crosslinking activities.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Aliashkevich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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