Gain of Spontaneous clpX Mutations Boosting Motility via Adaption to Environments in Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Motility is finely regulated and is crucial to bacterial processes including colonization and biofilm formation. There is a trade-off between motility and growth in bacteria with molecular mechanisms not fully understood. Hypermotile Escherichia coli could be isolated by evolving non-motile cells on soft agar plates. Most of the isolates carried mutations located upstream of the flhDC promoter region, which upregulate the transcriptional expression of the master regulator of the flagellum biosynthesis, FlhDC. Here, we identified that spontaneous mutations in clpX boosted the motility of E. coli largely, inducing several folds of changes in swimming speed. Among the mutations identified, we further elucidated the molecular mechanism underlying the ClpX^V78F</

SUBMITTER: Li B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8652233 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature