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The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus
Successive division events in the spherically shaped bacterium Staphylococcus aureus are oriented in three alternating perpendicular planes. The mechanisms that underlie this relatively unique pattern of division and coordinate it with chromosome segregation remain largely unknown. Thus far, the onl...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540599/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28723932 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006908 |
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author | Pang, Ting Wang, Xindan Lim, Hoong Chuin Bernhardt, Thomas G. Rudner, David Z. |
author_facet | Pang, Ting Wang, Xindan Lim, Hoong Chuin Bernhardt, Thomas G. Rudner, David Z. |
author_sort | Pang, Ting |
collection | PubMed |
description | Successive division events in the spherically shaped bacterium Staphylococcus aureus are oriented in three alternating perpendicular planes. The mechanisms that underlie this relatively unique pattern of division and coordinate it with chromosome segregation remain largely unknown. Thus far, the only known spatial regulator of division in this organism is the nucleoid occlusion protein Noc that inhibits assembly of the cytokinetic ring over the chromosome. However, Noc is not essential in S. aureus, indicating that additional regulators are likely to exist. To search for these factors, we screened for mutants that are synthetic lethal with Noc inactivation. Our characterization of these mutants led to the discovery that S. aureus Noc also controls the initiation of DNA replication. We show that cells lacking Noc over-initiate and mutations in the initiator gene dnaA suppress this defect. Importantly, these dnaA mutations also partially suppress the division problems associated with Δnoc. Reciprocally, we show that over-expression of DnaA enhances the over-initiation and cell division phenotypes of the Δnoc mutant. Thus, a single factor both blocks cell division over chromosomes and helps to ensure that new rounds of DNA replication are not initiated prematurely. This degree of economy in coordinating key cell biological processes has not been observed in rod-shaped bacteria and may reflect the challenges posed by the reduced cell volume and complicated division pattern of this spherical pathogen. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5540599 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-55405992017-08-12 The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus Pang, Ting Wang, Xindan Lim, Hoong Chuin Bernhardt, Thomas G. Rudner, David Z. PLoS Genet Research Article Successive division events in the spherically shaped bacterium Staphylococcus aureus are oriented in three alternating perpendicular planes. The mechanisms that underlie this relatively unique pattern of division and coordinate it with chromosome segregation remain largely unknown. Thus far, the only known spatial regulator of division in this organism is the nucleoid occlusion protein Noc that inhibits assembly of the cytokinetic ring over the chromosome. However, Noc is not essential in S. aureus, indicating that additional regulators are likely to exist. To search for these factors, we screened for mutants that are synthetic lethal with Noc inactivation. Our characterization of these mutants led to the discovery that S. aureus Noc also controls the initiation of DNA replication. We show that cells lacking Noc over-initiate and mutations in the initiator gene dnaA suppress this defect. Importantly, these dnaA mutations also partially suppress the division problems associated with Δnoc. Reciprocally, we show that over-expression of DnaA enhances the over-initiation and cell division phenotypes of the Δnoc mutant. Thus, a single factor both blocks cell division over chromosomes and helps to ensure that new rounds of DNA replication are not initiated prematurely. This degree of economy in coordinating key cell biological processes has not been observed in rod-shaped bacteria and may reflect the challenges posed by the reduced cell volume and complicated division pattern of this spherical pathogen. Public Library of Science 2017-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5540599/ /pubmed/28723932 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006908 Text en © 2017 Pang et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Pang, Ting Wang, Xindan Lim, Hoong Chuin Bernhardt, Thomas G. Rudner, David Z. The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus |
title | The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus |
title_full | The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus |
title_fullStr | The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus |
title_full_unstemmed | The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus |
title_short | The nucleoid occlusion factor Noc controls DNA replication initiation in Staphylococcus aureus |
title_sort | nucleoid occlusion factor noc controls dna replication initiation in staphylococcus aureus |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540599/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28723932 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006908 |
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