Youderian Philip, Burke Neal, White David J, Hartzell Patricia L
Department of Biology, Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas 77843-3258, USA.
Mol Microbiol. 2003 Jul;49(2):555-70. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2958.2003.03582.x.
Myxococcus xanthus glides over solid surfaces without the use of flagella, dependent upon two large sets of adventurous (A) and social (S) genes, using two different mechanisms of gliding motility. Myxococcus xanthus A-S- double mutants form non-motile colonies lacking migratory cells at their edges. We have isolated 115 independent mutants of M. xanthus with insertions of transposon magellan-4 in potential A genes by screening for insertions that reduce the motility of a mutant S- parental strain. These insertions are found not only in the three loci known to be required for A motility, mglBA, cglB, and aglU, but also in 30 new genes. Six of these new genes encode different homologues of the TolR, TolB, and TolQ transport proteins, suggesting that adventurous motility is dependent on biopolymer transport. Other insertions which affect both A and S motility suggest that both systems share common energy and cell wall determinants. Because the spectrum of magellan-4 insertions in M. xanthus is extraordinarily broad, transposon mutagenesis with this eukaryotic genetic element permits the rapid genetic analysis of large sets of genes that contribute to a complex microbial behaviors such as A motility.
黄色粘球菌在不使用鞭毛的情况下在固体表面滑行，这依赖于两组大型的冒险性（A）和社会性（S）基因，采用两种不同的滑行运动机制。黄色粘球菌A-S双突变体形成边缘缺乏迁移细胞的不运动菌落。我们通过筛选降低突变S亲本菌株运动性的插入片段，分离出了115个黄色粘球菌的独立突变体，这些突变体的转座子麦哲伦-4插入到潜在的A基因中。这些插入不仅存在于已知A运动性所需的三个位点，即mglBA、cglB和aglU中，还存在于30个新基因中。其中六个新基因编码TolR、TolB和TolQ转运蛋白的不同同源物，这表明冒险性运动依赖于生物聚合物转运。其他影响A和S运动性的插入表明，这两个系统共享共同的能量和细胞壁决定因素。由于麦哲伦-4在黄色粘球菌中的插入谱非常广泛，使用这种真核遗传元件进行转座子诱变可以对大量有助于复杂微生物行为（如A运动性）的基因进行快速遗传分析。
