Bacterial translation elongation factor EF-Tu interacts and colocalizes with actin-like MreB protein |
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Authors: | Hervé Jo?l Defeu Soufo Christian Reimold Uwe Linne Tobias Knust Johannes Gescher Peter L Graumann |
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Institution: | aMikrobiologie, Fakultät für Biologie, Universität Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany; and ;bBiochemie, Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, 35032 Marburg, Germany |
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Abstract: | We show that translation initiation factor EF-Tu plays a second important role in cell shape maintenance in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. EF-Tu localizes in a helical pattern underneath the cell membrane and colocalizes with MreB, an actin-like cytoskeletal element setting up rod cell shape. The localization of MreB and of EF-Tu is interdependent, but in contrast to the dynamic MreB filaments, EF-Tu structures are more static and may serve as tracks for MreB filaments. In agreement with this idea, EF-Tu and MreB interact in vivo and in vitro. Lowering of the EF-Tu levels had a minor effect on translation but a strong effect on cell shape and on the localization of MreB, and blocking of the function of EF-Tu in translation did not interfere with the localization of MreB, showing that, directly or indirectly, EF-Tu affects the cytoskeletal MreB structure and thus serves two important functions in a bacterium. |
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Keywords: | Bacillus subtilis bacterial cytoskeleton cell shape |
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