The Lon protease temporally restricts polar cell differentiation events during the Caulobacter cell cycle.

ABSTRACT: The highly conserved protease Lon has important regulatory and protein quality control functions in cells from the three domains of life. Despite many years of research on Lon, only a few specific protein substrates are known in most organisms. Here, we used a quantitative proteomics approach to identify novel substrates of Lon in the dimorphic bacterium Caulobacter crescentus. We focused our study on proteins involved in polar cell differentiation and investigated the developmental regulator StaR and the flagella hook length regulator FliK as specific Lon substrates in detail. We show that Lon recognizes these proteins at their C-termini, and that Lon-dependent degradation ensures their temporally restricted accumulation in the cell cycle phase when their function is needed. Disrup

SUBMITTER: Omnus DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8545394 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature