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Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness

A central question in mechanobiology is how cellular-scale structures are established and regulated. In bacteria, the cell envelope is essential for mechanical integrity, protecting against environmental stresses and bearing the load from high turgor pressures. Trivedi et al. (mBio 9:e01340-18, 2018...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Odermatt, Pascal D., Arjes, Heidi A., Chang, Fred, Huang, Kerwyn Casey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6199500/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30352940
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02127-18
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author Odermatt, Pascal D.
Arjes, Heidi A.
Chang, Fred
Huang, Kerwyn Casey
author_facet Odermatt, Pascal D.
Arjes, Heidi A.
Chang, Fred
Huang, Kerwyn Casey
author_sort Odermatt, Pascal D.
collection PubMed
description A central question in mechanobiology is how cellular-scale structures are established and regulated. In bacteria, the cell envelope is essential for mechanical integrity, protecting against environmental stresses and bearing the load from high turgor pressures. Trivedi et al. (mBio 9:e01340-18, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01340-18) screened a Pseudomonas aeruginosa transposon library and identified genes that influence cell stiffness by measuring cell growth while cells were embedded in an agarose gel. Their findings provide a broad knowledge base for how biochemical pathways regulate cellular mechanical properties in this pathogen. Dozens of genes across diverse functional categories were implicated, suggesting that cellular mechanics is a systems-level emergent property. Furthermore, changes in d-alanine levels in a dadA (d-alanine dehydrogenase) mutant resulted in decreases in the expression of cell wall enzymes, cross-linking density, and cell stiffness. These insights into the biochemical and mechanical roles of dadA highlight the importance of systems-level investigations into the physical properties of cells.
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spelling pubmed-61995002018-10-26 Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness Odermatt, Pascal D. Arjes, Heidi A. Chang, Fred Huang, Kerwyn Casey mBio Commentary A central question in mechanobiology is how cellular-scale structures are established and regulated. In bacteria, the cell envelope is essential for mechanical integrity, protecting against environmental stresses and bearing the load from high turgor pressures. Trivedi et al. (mBio 9:e01340-18, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01340-18) screened a Pseudomonas aeruginosa transposon library and identified genes that influence cell stiffness by measuring cell growth while cells were embedded in an agarose gel. Their findings provide a broad knowledge base for how biochemical pathways regulate cellular mechanical properties in this pathogen. Dozens of genes across diverse functional categories were implicated, suggesting that cellular mechanics is a systems-level emergent property. Furthermore, changes in d-alanine levels in a dadA (d-alanine dehydrogenase) mutant resulted in decreases in the expression of cell wall enzymes, cross-linking density, and cell stiffness. These insights into the biochemical and mechanical roles of dadA highlight the importance of systems-level investigations into the physical properties of cells. American Society for Microbiology 2018-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC6199500/ /pubmed/30352940 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02127-18 Text en Copyright © 2018 Odermatt et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Commentary
Odermatt, Pascal D.
Arjes, Heidi A.
Chang, Fred
Huang, Kerwyn Casey
Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness
title Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness
title_full Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness
title_fullStr Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness
title_full_unstemmed Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness
title_short Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness
title_sort who's your dada? d-alanine levels regulate bacterial stiffness
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6199500/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30352940
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02127-18
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