Abstract
Binary fission has been well studied in rod-shaped bacteria, but the mechanisms underlying cell division in spherical bacteria are poorly understood. Rod-shaped bacteria harbor regulatory proteins that place and remodel the division machinery during cytokinesis. In the spherical human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, we found that the essential protein GpsB localizes to mid-cell during cell division and co-constricts with the division machinery. Depletion of GpsB arrested cell division and led to cell lysis, whereas overproduction of GpsB inhibited cell division and led to the formation of enlarged cells. We report that S. aureus GpsB, unlike other Firmicutes GpsB orthologs, directly interacts with the core divisome component FtsZ. GpsB bundles and organizes FtsZ filaments and also stimulates the GTPase activity of FtsZ. We propose that GpsB orchestrates the initial stabilization of the Z-ring at the onset of cell division and participates in the subsequent remodeling of the divisome during cytokinesis.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e38856 |
| Journal | eLife |
| Volume | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2018 |
Funding
We thank S Gottesman, S Wickner, M Maurizi, and D Chattoraj for suggestions; V Lee and members of our labs for comments on the manuscript; JP Cooper’s lab (NCI) for use of their SIM microscope; H Arjes and P Levin for S. aureus strain SH1000 and plasmid pEPSA5; L Shaw for S aureus plasmid pJB67; D Ziegler (Bacillus Genetic Stock Center) for various B. subtilis strains; and Marc Llaguno and Xinran Liu at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Imaging at Yale School of Medicine for TEM. This work was funded by a start-up grant from the University of South Florida (PJE); the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health #R01GM118927 (JLC), #R01GM128037 (PJE), and #SC2 GM105419 (KMT); USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch project #232838 (JLC); Howard University Medical Alumni Association (KMT), supported in part by: Howard University Research Centers in Minority Institutions, funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (G12MD007597), NIH; and the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research (KSR).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| SH1000 | |
| 01GM118927, 2 GM105419, R01GM128037 | |
| 232838, USDA | |
| G12MD007597 | |
| University of South Florida | |
| Howard University |