Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, Centre Médicale Universitaire, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2011 Mar 1;3(3):a006809. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a006809.
While polar organelles hold the key to understanding the fundamentals of cell polarity and cell biological principles in general, they have served in the past merely for taxonomical purposes. Here, we highlight recent efforts in unraveling the molecular basis of polar organelle positioning in bacterial cells. Specifically, we detail the role of members of the Ras-like GTPase superfamily and coiled-coil-rich scaffolding proteins in modulating bacterial cell polarity and in recruiting effector proteins to polar sites. Such roles are well established for eukaryotic cells, but not for bacterial cells that are generally considered diffusion-limited. Studies on spatial regulation of protein positioning in bacterial cells, though still in their infancy, will undoubtedly experience a surge of interest, as comprehensive localization screens have yielded an extensive list of (polarly) localized proteins, potentially reflecting subcellular sites of functional specialization predicted for organelles.
虽然极性细胞器是理解细胞极性基本原理和一般细胞生物学原理的关键，但过去它们仅用于分类目的。在这里，我们强调了最近在揭示细菌细胞中极性细胞器定位的分子基础方面的努力。具体来说，我们详细介绍了 Ras 样 GTPase 超家族成员和富含卷曲螺旋的支架蛋白在调节细菌细胞极性和将效应蛋白募集到极性部位中的作用。这种作用在真核细胞中已经得到很好的证实，但在通常被认为是扩散受限的细菌细胞中尚未得到证实。尽管对细菌细胞中蛋白质定位的空间调节的研究仍处于起步阶段，但随着全面的定位筛选产生了大量（极性）定位蛋白的列表，这可能反映了细胞器预测的功能专业化的亚细胞部位，无疑将引起人们的极大兴趣。
