Contact-dependent growth inhibition requires the essential outer membrane protein BamA (YaeT) as the receptor and the inner membrane transport protein AcrB.

ABSTRACT: Contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) is a phenomenon by which bacterial cell growth is regulated by direct cell-to-cell contact via the CdiA/CdiB two-partner secretion system. Characterization of mutants resistant to CDI allowed us to identify BamA (YaeT) as the outer membrane receptor for CDI and AcrB as a potential downstream target. Notably, both BamA and AcrB are part of distinct multi-component machines. The Bam machine assembles outer membrane beta-barrel proteins into the outer membrane and the Acr machine exports small molecules into the extracellular milieu. We discovered that a mutation that reduces expression of BamA decreased binding of CDI+ inhibitor cells, measured by flow cytometry with fluorescently labelled bacteria. In addition, alpha-BamA antibodies, which recognize

SUBMITTER: Aoki SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2579741 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature