A divergent CheW confers plasticity to nucleoid-associated chemosensory arrays

Annick Guiseppi (1) , Juan Jesus Vicente (2) , Julien Herrou (1) , Deborah N Byrne (3) , Aurelie Barneoud (1) , Audrey Moine (1) , Leon Espinosa (1) , Marie-Jeanne Basse (4) , Virginie Molle (5) , Tam Mignot (1) , Philippe Roche (6) , Emilia Mauriello (1)

1 LCB - Laboratoire de chimie bactérienne
2 University of Washington [Seattle]
3 IMM - Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée
4 LMGM - Laboratoire de microbiologie et génétique moléculaires - UMR5100
5 LPHI - Laboratory of Pathogen Host Interactions [Montpellier]
6 IMEP - Institut Méditerranéen d'Ecologie et de Paléoécologie

Chemosensory systems are highly organized signaling pathways that allow bacteria to adapt to environmental changes. The Frz chemosensory system from M. xanthus possesses two CheW-like proteins, FrzA (the core CheW) and FrzB. We found that FrzB does not interact with FrzE (the cognate CheA) as it lacks the amino acid region responsible for this interaction. FrzB, instead, acts upstream of FrzCD in the regulation of M. xanthus chemotaxis behaviors and activates the Frz pathway by allowing the formation and distribution of multiple chemosensory clusters on the nucleoid. These results, together, show that the lack of the CheA-interacting region in FrzB confers new functions to this small protein.

Mots clés: Protein structure comparison; Cell motility; Fluorescence microscopy; Phosphorylation; Cell fusion; Crystal structure; Histidine; Protein structure

Domaines: Biologie moléculaire

Annick Guiseppi, Juan Jesus Vicente, Julien Herrou, Deborah N Byrne, Aurelie Barneoud, et al.. A divergent CheW confers plasticity to nucleoid-associated chemosensory arrays. PLoS Genetics, 2019, 15 (12), pp.e1008533. ⟨10.1371/journal.pgen.1008533⟩. ⟨hal-02423614⟩