A new family of bacterial actin-like proteins regulates cell morphology in a filamentous cyanobacterium.

ABSTRACT: Actin proteins are common to all domains of life and exhibit ATP-dependent polymerization to form filaments. In bacteria, four families of bacterial actin-like proteins (BALPs) have been identified and characterized. These BALPs are involved in plasmid partitioning (ParM), cell division (FtsA), magnetosome positioning (MamK), and cell morphology (MreB). Here, we report the identification of a fifth family of BALP, FcmB. Using the model filamentous cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme, we demonstrate that FcmB is a BALP that regulates cell morphology in filamentous cyanobacteria. Deletion of fcmB, or fcmC, which encodes an FcmB-interacting protein, resulted in the loss of rod morphology, similar to the phenotype reported for mreB mutants in other bacteria, including

SUBMITTER: Nguyen A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12645912 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature