Abstract

Cell division is one of the most fundamental and challenging processes in the life of bacteria. The divisome is a complex composed primarily of membrane proteins that assembles at mid-cell and is necessary for bacterial cell division to occur. The structural architecture of the divisome, and the organization of its transmembrane region in particular, are still mysterious. Unraveling this organization is a crucial goal for a ful understanding of the mechanisms that are involved in bacterial division and its regulation. This goal of this proposal is a structural and functional analysis of six single-span transmembrane proteins (ZipA, FtsL, FtsB, FtsQ, FtsI and FtsN) that are central to the assembly of the divisome. The proposed approach is multi-disciplinary, with a biophysical characterization of the interactions in vitro, mutagenesis, computational modeling and X-ray crystallography to study their extra-membranous domains. Our main objectives are to determine the ability of the transmembrane region of the six divisomal proteins to interact; measure the energetics of their association; and determine their structural organization. This project addresses a critical barrier to progress in understanding bacterial cell division, namely the lack of information on the structural organization of the membrane region of the divisiome. By beginning to unravel the structural and mechanistic details of the complex, this project will establish important groundwork needed for the development of new strategies for understanding and controlling bacterial growth.

Public Health Relevance

The structural architecture of the divisome - a complex of protein that is required for bacterial cell division - remains mysterious. We propose to study six divisomal membrane proteins (ZipA, FtsL, FtsB, FtsQ, FtsI, FtsN) in order to understand how they interact within the region of the cellular membrane. This project will begin to unravel the structural organization of the transmembrane region of the divisome and establish important groundwork needed for the development of new strategies for understanding and controlling bacterial growth.

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01GM099752-05
Application #
9333398
Study Section
Biochemistry and Biophysics of Membranes Study Section (BBM)
Program Officer
Preusch, Peter
Project Start
2013-09-01
Project End
2019-08-31
Budget Start
2017-09-01
Budget End
2019-08-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2017
Total Cost
Indirect Cost

  Institution

Name
University of Wisconsin Madison
Department
Biochemistry
Type
Earth Sciences/Resources
DUNS #
161202122
City
Madison
State
WI
Country
United States
Zip Code
53715

  Publications

Condon, Samson G F; Mahbuba, Deena-Al; Armstrong, Claire R et al. (2018) The FtsLB subcomplex of the bacterial divisome is a tetramer with an uninterrupted FtsL helix linking the transmembrane and periplasmic regions. J Biol Chem 293:1623-1641
Kaur, Harpreet; Jamalidinan, Fatemehsadat; Condon, Samson G F et al. (2018) Analysis of spliceosome dynamics by maximum likelihood fitting of dwell time distributions. Methods :
Guo, Xiao; Niemi, Natalie M; Hutchins, Paul D et al. (2017) Ptc7p Dephosphorylates Select Mitochondrial Proteins to Enhance Metabolic Function. Cell Rep 18:307-313
Barth, Patrick; Senes, Alessandro (2016) Toward high-resolution computational design of the structure and function of helical membrane proteins. Nat Struct Mol Biol 23:475-80
Armstrong, Claire R; Senes, Alessandro (2016) Screening for transmembrane association in divisome proteins using TOXGREEN, a high-throughput variant of the TOXCAT assay. Biochim Biophys Acta 1858:2573-2583
Zhang, Zhi; Subramaniam, Sabareesh; Kale, Justin et al. (2016) BH3-in-groove dimerization initiates and helix 9 dimerization expands Bax pore assembly in membranes. EMBO J 35:208-36
Khadria, Ambalika S; Senes, Alessandro (2015) Fluorophores, environments, and quantification techniques in the analysis of transmembrane helix interaction using FRET. Biopolymers 104:247-64
Subramaniam, Sabareesh; Senes, Alessandro (2014) Backbone dependency further improves side chain prediction efficiency in the Energy-based Conformer Library (bEBL). Proteins 82:3177-87
Gromek, Katarzyna A; Suchy, Fabian P; Meddaugh, Hannah R et al. (2014) The oligomeric states of the purified sigma-1 receptor are stabilized by ligands. J Biol Chem 289:20333-44
Khadria, Ambalika S; Mueller, Benjamin K; Stefely, Jonathan A et al. (2014) A Gly-zipper motif mediates homodimerization of the transmembrane domain of the mitochondrial kinase ADCK3. J Am Chem Soc 136:14068-77

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