Beveridge Terry J
Advanced Food and Materials Network, Canadian Network Centres of Excellence (AFMnet-NCE), Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, College of Biological Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1.
Mol Microbiol. 2006 Oct;62(1):1-4. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2006.05358.x.
The paper by Briegel et al. in this issue of Molecular Microbiology uses advanced cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryoTEM) techniques to reveal four separate locations of cytoplasmic filament bundles in Caulobacter crescentus. Intuitively, these filaments should be rather rigid protein structures and composed of previously identified shape-forming proteins, such as crescentin or MreB. Yet, deletion mutants lacking these proteins still possessed filaments and still possessed wild-type morphology. These results suggest that a complex combination of protein structures, including those of crescentin, MreB and these newly identified bundles, in combination with the cell envelope help maintain the complicated shape of C. crescentus. Other bacteria might have similar architectural proteins to assist in maintaining the cell contours during growth and division.
布里格尔等人在本期《分子微生物学》上发表的论文，运用先进的低温透射电子显微镜（cryoTEM）技术，揭示了新月柄杆菌细胞质丝束的四个不同位置。直观地说，这些丝应该是相当刚性的蛋白质结构，并且由先前鉴定出的形成形状的蛋白质组成，比如新月菌素或MreB。然而，缺乏这些蛋白质的缺失突变体仍然拥有丝束并且仍然具有野生型形态。这些结果表明，包括新月菌素、MreB和这些新鉴定出的丝束在内的蛋白质结构的复杂组合，与细胞膜一起有助于维持新月柄杆菌复杂的形状。其他细菌可能有类似的结构蛋白，以协助在生长和分裂过程中维持细胞轮廓。
