ftsW is an essential cell-division gene in Escherichia coli |
| |
Authors: | David S. Boyle,Medhat M. Khattar,Stephen G. Addinall,Joe Lutkenhaus,& William D. Donachie |
| |
Affiliation: | Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JR, UK.,;Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology, University of Kansas Medical Centre, Kansas City, Kansas 66160, USA. |
| |
Abstract: | In the absence of exogenous promoters, plasmid-mediated complementation of the temperature-sensitive ftsW201 allele requires the presence of the full coding sequence of ftsW plus upstream DNA encompassing the C-terminus of mraY and the full coding sequence of murD . We used molecular and genetic techniques to introduce an insertional inactivation into the chromosomal copy of ftsW , in the presence of the plasmid-borne wild-type ftsW gene under the control of PBAD. In the absence of arabinose, the ftsW -null strain is not viable, and a shift from arabinose- to glucose-containing liquid medium resulted in a block in division, followed by cell lysis. Immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that in ftsW -null filaments, the FtsZ ring is absent in 50–60% of filaments, whilst between one and three Z-rings per filament can be detected in the remainder of the population, with the majority of these containing only one Z-ring per filament. We also demonstrated that the expression of only ftsWS (the smaller of two ftsW open reading frames) from PBAD is sufficient for complementation of the ftsW -null allele. We conclude that FtsW is an essential cell-division protein in Escherichia coli , and that it plays a role in the stabilization of the FtsZ ring during cell division. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|