Mechanical Genomics Identifies Diverse Modulators of Bacterial Cell Stiffness.

ABSTRACT: Bacteria must maintain mechanical integrity to withstand the large osmotic pressure differential across the cell membrane and wall. Although maintaining mechanical integrity is critical for proper cellular function, a fact exploited by prominent cell-wall-targeting antibiotics, the proteins that contribute to cellular mechanics remain unidentified. Here, we describe a high-throughput optical method for quantifying cell stiffness and apply this technique to a genome-wide collection of ∼4,000 Escherichia coli mutants. We identify genes with roles in diverse functional processes spanning cell-wall synthesis, energy production, and DNA replication and repair that significantly change cell stiffness when deleted. We observe that proteins with biochemically redundant roles in cell-wall synthesis

SUBMITTER: Auer GK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4967499 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature