Conditional lethality, division defects, membrane involution, and endocytosis in mre and mrd shape mutants of Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Maintenance of rod shape in Escherichia coli requires the shape proteins MreB, MreC, MreD, MrdA (PBP2), and MrdB (RodA). How loss of the Mre proteins affects E. coli viability has been unclear. We generated Mre and Mrd depletion strains under conditions that minimize selective pressure for undefined suppressors and found their phenotypes to be very similar. Cells lacking one or more of the five proteins were fully viable and propagated as small spheres under conditions of slow mass increase but formed large nondividing spheroids with noncanonical FtsZ assembly patterns at higher mass doubling rates. Extra FtsZ was sufficient to suppress lethality in each case, allowing cells to propagate as small spheres under any condition. The failure of each unsuppressed mutant to divide under nonpermis

SUBMITTER: Bendezu FO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2258658 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature