Distribution of mechanical stress in the Escherichia coli cell envelope.

ABSTRACT: The cell envelope in Gram-negative bacteria comprises two distinct membranes with a cell wall between them. There has been a growing interest in understanding the mechanical adaptation of this cell envelope to the osmotic pressure (or turgor pressure), which is generated by the difference in the concentration of solutes between the cytoplasm and the external environment. However, it remains unexplored how the cell wall, the inner membrane (IM), and the outer membrane (OM) effectively protect the cell from this pressure by bearing the resulting surface tension, thus preventing the formation of inner membrane bulges, abnormal cell morphology, spheroplasts and cell lysis. In this study, we have used molecular dynamics (MD) simulations combined with experiments to resolve how and to what exten

SUBMITTER: Hwang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6203649 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature