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Published June 1, 2017 | public
Journal Article

Short FtsZ filaments can drive asymmetric cell envelope constriction at the onset of bacterial cytokinesis

Abstract

FtsZ, the bacterial homologue of eukaryotic tubulin, plays a central role in cell division in nearly all bacteria and many archaea. It forms filaments under the cytoplasmic membrane at the division site where, together with other proteins it recruits, it drives peptidoglycan synthesis and constricts the cell. Despite extensive study, the arrangement of FtsZ filaments and their role in division continue to be debated. Here, we apply electron cryotomography to image the native structure of intact dividing cells and show that constriction in a variety of Gram‐negative bacterial cells, including Proteus mirabilis and Caulobacter crescentus, initiates asymmetrically, accompanied by asymmetric peptidoglycan incorporation and short FtsZ‐like filament formation. These results show that a complete ring of FtsZ is not required for constriction and lead us to propose a model for FtsZ‐driven division in which short dynamic FtsZ filaments can drive initial peptidoglycan synthesis and envelope constriction at the onset of cytokinesis, later increasing in length and number to encircle the division plane and complete constriction.

Additional Information

© 2017 The Authors. Received 2 December 2016; Revised 17 March 2017; Accepted 23 March 2017. Published online 24.04.2017. We thank Dr. Yves Brun and Mr. Erkin Kuru at Indiana University for providing reagents and technical assistance. We thank Prof. Douglas Weibel at University of Wisconsin‐Madison for providing the Proteus mirabilis strain. We thank Dr. Brian Hedlund at the University of Nevada for providing the Belliella baltica‐related strain. We are also grateful to all members of the Jensen laboratory for discussion and technical assistance. This work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Author contributions: QY and GJJ conceived and designed the experiments. QY, Y‐WC, MB, CVI, AB, and DG performed the experiments. AIJ wrote the software and made measurements. QY, AIJ, CMO, and GJJ analyzed the data. QY, AIJ, Y‐WC, CMO, and GJJ wrote the paper. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional details

Created:
August 21, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023