Ftsz Filaments Have the Opposite Kinetic Polarity of Microtubules
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FtsZ filaments have the opposite kinetic polarity of microtubules Shishen Dua, Sebastien Pichoffa, Karsten Kruseb,c,d, and Joe Lutkenhausa,1 aDepartment of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics, and Immunology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160; bDepartment of Biochemistry, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland; cDepartment of Theoretical Physics, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland; and dThe National Center of Competence in Research Chemical Biology, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland Contributed by Joe Lutkenhaus, August 29, 2018 (sent for review July 11, 2018; reviewed by Jan Löwe and Jie Xiao) FtsZ is the ancestral homolog of tubulin and assembles into the Z Since FtsZ filaments treadmill, longitudinal interface mutants ring that organizes the division machinery to drive cell division of FtsZ should have different effects on assembly. Interface in most bacteria. In contrast to tubulin that assembles into 13 mutants that can add to the growing end but prevent further stranded microtubules that undergo dynamic instability, FtsZ growth should be toxic to assembly and thus cell division at assembles into single-stranded filaments that treadmill to distrib- substoichiometric levels, whereas interface mutants that cannot ute the peptidoglycan synthetic machinery at the septum. Here, add onto filaments should be much less toxic. Redick et al. (22) using longitudinal interface mutants of FtsZ, we demonstrate observed that some amino acid substitutions at the bottom end that the kinetic polarity of FtsZ filaments is opposite to that of of FtsZ were toxic, whereas substitutions at the top end were not. microtubules. A conformational switch accompanying the assem- – bly of FtsZ generates the kinetic polarity of FtsZ filaments, which Furthermore, expression of just the N-terminal domain (1 193, explains the toxicity of interface mutants that function as a capper top end), but not the C-terminal domain of FtsZ, showed some and reveals the mechanism of cooperative assembly. This ap- toxicity (23). Also, the N-terminal domain of FtsZ has been proach can also be employed to determine the kinetic polarity of shown to antagonize FtsZ polymerization in vitro (24). These other filament-forming proteins. observations suggest that FtsZ filaments have the opposite ki- netic polarity of microtubules; however, previous measurements FtsZ | capper | Z ring | treadmilling | tubulin showed that neither the bottom-face mutants nor the N-terminal domain of FtsZ was toxic at substoichiometric levels but needed rokaryotic cytoskeletons play essential roles in many funda- to be overexpressed three-to fivefold (22, 23), arguing against Pmental aspects of prokaryotic cell biology, including cytokinesis, this suggestion. Since the mutations examined in the prior study cell-shape maintenance, chromosome segregation, and other as- were made before the structure of an FtsZ filament was known, pects of cellular organization (1). FtsZ, a prokaryotic tubulin ho- and many of the mutants still assembled in vivo, we decided to molog, polymerizes into filaments that coalesce into the Z ring at reinvestigate the effect of interface mutants using known muta- – midcell (2 4). The ring functions as a scaffold for recruitment of the tions. Our findings demonstrate that the kinetic polarity of FtsZ machinery necessary to synthesize septal peptidoglycan (5, 6). Since filaments is the opposite of tubulin assembly into microtubules. formation of the Z ring is the first step in bacterial cytokinesis, Furthermore, we propose how the conformational switch cou- antagonism of FtsZ polymerization is a prominent mechanism for pled to assembly promotes polymerization. regulating cell division in bacteria (7–11). Like tubulin, FtsZ undergoes GTP-dependent, cooperative assembly with a critical concentration of about 1 μM (12, 13). Significance However, FtsZ differs from tubulin in several ways. Tubulin is present as an αβ-heterodimer that assembles into microtubules FtsZ is the founding member of the prokaryotic tubulin family. containing 13 protofilaments (14), whereas FtsZ is a monomer It assembles into single-stranded filaments that coalesce to that polymerizes into single-stranded filaments in vitro of about form the Z ring that drives bacterial cell division in most bac- 120–200 nm in length (30–50 subunits) under conditions that teria. FtsZ filaments undergo cooperative assembly and display best mimic in vivo conditions (5, 15). In vivo, FtsZ assembles into treadmilling behavior. Here we investigate the kinetic polarity small clusters of filaments of unknown structure that together of FtsZ filaments by studying the toxicity of longitudinal in- compose the Z ring (16, 17). Furthermore, microtubules undergo terface mutants of FtsZ and find that bottom-face mutants are dynamic instability (18), whereas FtsZ filaments treadmill (16, extremely toxic. This toxicity combined with a conformational 19). FtsZ filaments form the scaffold for the divisome, and the switch induced during assembly reveals the kinetic polarity of treadmilling distributes this peptidoglycan synthetic machinery FtsZ filaments, the basis for cooperative assembly, and explains around the septum (16, 20). FtsZ exists in two conformations: an the basis for other inhibitors of FtsZ assembly. It is likely that all open conformation observed in filaments and a closed conforma- members of the FtsZ/tubulin superfamily employ an assembly- tion in the monomer (21). The basis of treadmilling is an assembly- induced conformational switch to generate kinetic polarity, which could be revealed by the same approach used here. associated conformational switch that promotes polymerization along with the assembly-associated GTP hydrolysis that weakens Author contributions: S.D. and J.L. designed research; S.D., S.P., and K.K. performed re- intersubunit interactions (21). However, the kinetic polarity of these search; S.P. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; S.D., K.K., and J.L. analyzed data; and FtsZ filaments, or how it is achieved, is not known (5). S.D. and J.L. wrote the paper. Dynamic filaments have structural and kinetic polarity. The Reviewers: J.L., Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology; and J.X., Johns growing end is referred to as the “plus” end and the other end is Hopkins University School of Medicine. referred to as the “minus” end. When tubulin assembles into The authors declare no conflict of interest. microtubules, the bound GTP (top end) is exposed at the plus Published under the PNAS license. end, and incoming subunits interact with this end through their 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected]. T7 loop (bottom end) (14). Like tubulin, FtsZ assembles in a This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. head-to-tail manner, however, there are several indications that 1073/pnas.1811919115/-/DCSupplemental. the polarity of FtsZ assembly is opposite to that of microtubules. Published online October 1, 2018. 10768–10773 | PNAS | October 16, 2018 | vol. 115 | no. 42 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1811919115 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 Results Although arabinose-inducible vectors offer some advantages Strategy for Determining Polarity of FtsZ Filaments. The expected (tighter off regulation), they have some disadvantages (variable effect of top and bottom interface mutants on treadmilling of cell-to-cell induction) (28). To better assess the toxicity of ftsZL272E FtsZ is outlined in Fig. 1A. In the first scenario, FtsZ polymer- , we attempted to clone it into an IPTG-inducible vec- izes in the same direction as tubulin (top-end growth), and a top tor; however, we were unsuccessful. Since this was likely due interface mutant would add to the growing or plus end blocking the to toxicity from leaky expression, we modified the ribosome ftsZ growth of the filament, resulting in disassembly. Such a mutant binding site for on the plasmid to reduce expression (from CGGAGA to CGCAGA). Following this change, we were able would be expected to be dominant-negative and inhibit cell division, ftsZ whereas a bottom interface mutant would not affect polymerization to clone all alleles into the IPTG-inducible vector. Induction ftsZL272E ftsZ360 ftsZL272E and thus would be nontoxic. In the second scenario, FtsZ poly- of and from this plasmid was toxic with A ftsZL272E merizes in the opposite direction of tubulin (bottom-end growth), being much more toxic (Fig. 2 ). Induction of in a WT and the effects of the top- and bottom-face mutants on polymeri- strain caused filamentation and blocked colony formation at μ A B ftsZ zation and cell division would be reversed. Li et al. (25) described 30 M IPTG (Fig. 2 and ). Since induction of with 1 mM interface mutants that are unable to assemble including top IPTG from this plasmid does not provide enough FtsZ to fully ftsZ SI Appendix [FtsZL178E(top)] and bottom-face mutants [FtsZL272E(bottom)]. These complement a -depletion strain ( ,Fig.S3), we con- clude that FtsZL272E is inhibitory at substoichiometric levels. If mutants do not assemble because charged residues would be forced L272E into hydrophobic pockets formed between subunits in the filament the toxicity of FtsZ is due to incorporation into filaments, (Fig. 1B). then addition of the L178E substitution to disrupt the other longitudinal interface should prevent incorporation into the The Bottom Interface Mutant Is Toxic at Substoichiometric Levels. polymer and alleviate the