TY - JOUR
T1 - De novo morphogenesis in L-forms via geometric control of cell growth
AU - Billings, Gabriel
AU - Ouzounov, Nikolay
AU - Ursell, Tristan
AU - Desmarais, Samantha M.
AU - Shaevitz, Joshua
AU - Gitai, Zemer
AU - Huang, Kerwyn Casey
PY - 2014/9
Y1 - 2014/9
N2 - Summary: In virtually all bacteria, the cell wall is crucial for mechanical integrity and for determining cell shape. Escherichia coli's rod-like shape is maintained via the spatiotemporal patterning of cell-wall synthesis by the actin homologue MreB. Here, we transiently inhibited cell-wall synthesis in E. coli to generate cell-wall-deficient, spherical L-forms, and found that they robustly reverted to a rod-like shape within several generations after inhibition cessation. The chemical composition of the cell wall remained essentially unchanged during this process, as indicated by liquid chromatography. Throughout reversion, MreB localized to inwardly curved regions of the cell, and fluorescent cell wall labelling revealed that MreB targets synthesis to those regions. When exposed to the MreB inhibitor A22, reverting cells regrew a cell wall but failed to recover a rod-like shape. Our results suggest that MreB provides the geometric measure that allows E. coli to actively establish and regulate its morphology.
AB - Summary: In virtually all bacteria, the cell wall is crucial for mechanical integrity and for determining cell shape. Escherichia coli's rod-like shape is maintained via the spatiotemporal patterning of cell-wall synthesis by the actin homologue MreB. Here, we transiently inhibited cell-wall synthesis in E. coli to generate cell-wall-deficient, spherical L-forms, and found that they robustly reverted to a rod-like shape within several generations after inhibition cessation. The chemical composition of the cell wall remained essentially unchanged during this process, as indicated by liquid chromatography. Throughout reversion, MreB localized to inwardly curved regions of the cell, and fluorescent cell wall labelling revealed that MreB targets synthesis to those regions. When exposed to the MreB inhibitor A22, reverting cells regrew a cell wall but failed to recover a rod-like shape. Our results suggest that MreB provides the geometric measure that allows E. coli to actively establish and regulate its morphology.
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U2 - 10.1111/mmi.12703
DO - 10.1111/mmi.12703
M3 - Article
C2 - 24995493
AN - SCOPUS:84906937826
SN - 0950-382X
VL - 93
SP - 883
EP - 896
JO - Molecular Microbiology
JF - Molecular Microbiology
IS - 5
ER -