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A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host

Although plasmids provide additional functions for cellular adaptation to the environment, they also create a metabolic burden, which causes the host cells to be less competitive with their siblings. Low-copy-number plasmids have thus evolved several mechanisms for their long-term maintenance in hos...

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Autores principales: Li, Ya-jie, Liu, Ya, Zhang, Zheng, Chen, Xiao-jing, Gong, Ya, Li, Yue-zhong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6091211/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30131946
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2018.00274
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author Li, Ya-jie
Liu, Ya
Zhang, Zheng
Chen, Xiao-jing
Gong, Ya
Li, Yue-zhong
author_facet Li, Ya-jie
Liu, Ya
Zhang, Zheng
Chen, Xiao-jing
Gong, Ya
Li, Yue-zhong
author_sort Li, Ya-jie
collection PubMed
description Although plasmids provide additional functions for cellular adaptation to the environment, they also create a metabolic burden, which causes the host cells to be less competitive with their siblings. Low-copy-number plasmids have thus evolved several mechanisms for their long-term maintenance in host cells. pMF1, discovered in Myxococcus fulvus 124B02, is the only endogenous autonomously replicated plasmid yet found in myxobacteria. Here we report that a post-segregational killing system, encoded by a co-transcriptional gene pair of pMF1.19 and pMF1.20, is involved in maintaining the pMF1 plasmid in its host cells. We demonstrate that the protein encoded by pMF1.20 is a new kind of nuclease, which is able to cleave DNA in vitro. The nuclease activity can be neutralized by the protein encoded by pMF1.19 through protein–protein interaction, suggesting that the protein is an immune protein for nuclease cleavage. We propose that the post-segregational killing mechanism of the nuclease toxin and immune protein pair encoded by pMF1.20 and pMF1.19 is helpful for the stable maintenance of pMF1 in M. fulvus cells.
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spelling pubmed-60912112018-08-21 A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host Li, Ya-jie Liu, Ya Zhang, Zheng Chen, Xiao-jing Gong, Ya Li, Yue-zhong Front Cell Infect Microbiol Cellular and Infection Microbiology Although plasmids provide additional functions for cellular adaptation to the environment, they also create a metabolic burden, which causes the host cells to be less competitive with their siblings. Low-copy-number plasmids have thus evolved several mechanisms for their long-term maintenance in host cells. pMF1, discovered in Myxococcus fulvus 124B02, is the only endogenous autonomously replicated plasmid yet found in myxobacteria. Here we report that a post-segregational killing system, encoded by a co-transcriptional gene pair of pMF1.19 and pMF1.20, is involved in maintaining the pMF1 plasmid in its host cells. We demonstrate that the protein encoded by pMF1.20 is a new kind of nuclease, which is able to cleave DNA in vitro. The nuclease activity can be neutralized by the protein encoded by pMF1.19 through protein–protein interaction, suggesting that the protein is an immune protein for nuclease cleavage. We propose that the post-segregational killing mechanism of the nuclease toxin and immune protein pair encoded by pMF1.20 and pMF1.19 is helpful for the stable maintenance of pMF1 in M. fulvus cells. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-08-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6091211/ /pubmed/30131946 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2018.00274 Text en Copyright © 2018 Li, Liu, Zhang, Chen, Gong and Li. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Cellular and Infection Microbiology
Li, Ya-jie
Liu, Ya
Zhang, Zheng
Chen, Xiao-jing
Gong, Ya
Li, Yue-zhong
A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host
title A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host
title_full A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host
title_fullStr A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host
title_full_unstemmed A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host
title_short A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host
title_sort post-segregational killing mechanism for maintaining plasmid pmf1 in its myxococcus fulvus host
topic Cellular and Infection Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6091211/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30131946
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2018.00274
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