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Flexibility of the Programme of Spore Coat Formation in Bacillus subtilis: Bypass of CotE Requirement by Over-Production of CotH
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 9, p e74949 (2013), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- Bacterial spores are surrounded by the coat, a multilayered shell that contributes in protecting the genome during stress conditions. In Bacillus subtilis, the model organism for spore formers, the coat is composed by about seventy different proteins, organized into four layers by the action of several regulatory proteins. A major component of this regulatory network, CotE, is needed to assemble the outer coat and develop spores fully resistant to lysozyme and able to germinate efficiently. Another regulator, CotH, is controlled by CotE and is present in low amounts both during sporulation and in mature spores. In spite of this CotH controls the assembly of at least nine outer coat proteins and cooperates with CotE in producing fully resistant and efficiently germinating spores. In order to improve our understanding of CotH role in spore formation, we over-produced CotH by placing its coding region under the control of a promoter stronger than its own promoter but with a similar timing of activity during sporulation. Over-production of CotH in an otherwise wild type strain did not cause any major effect, whereas in a cotE null background a partial recovery of the phenotypes associated to the cotE null mutation was observed. Western blot, fluorescence microscopy and Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering spectroscopy data indicate that, in the absence of CotE, over-production of CotH allowed the formation of spores overall resembling wild type spores and carrying in their coat some CotE-/CotH-dependant proteins. Our results suggest that the B. subtilis spore differentiation programme is flexible, and that an increase in the amount of a regulatory protein can replace a missing partner and partially substitute its function in the assembly of the spore coat.
- Subjects :
- Coat
lcsh:Medicine
Bacillus subtilis
Biology
Spectrum Analysis, Raman
Endospore
Microbiology
Cell wall
03 medical and health sciences
Bacterial Proteins
Cell Wall
Sporogenesis
Bacillus subtili
protein interaction
Promoter Regions, Genetic
lcsh:Science
spore coat
030304 developmental biology
Spores, Bacterial
0303 health sciences
Multidisciplinary
030306 microbiology
fungi
lcsh:R
Wild type
Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
biology.organism_classification
Spore
Phenotype
Germination
Mutation
lcsh:Q
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 9, p e74949 (2013), PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....947c901c06309ffd8c826dea119dac1c