Zhao Heng, Patel Vaidehi, Helmann John D, Dörr Tobias
Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-8101, USA.
Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Mol Microbiol. 2017 Dec;106(6):847-860. doi: 10.1111/mmi.13853. Epub 2017 Oct 26.
Bacterial cell wall synthesis is the target for some of our most powerful antibiotics and has thus been the subject of intense research focus for more than 50 years. Surprisingly, we still lack a fundamental understanding of how bacteria build, maintain and expand their cell wall. Due to technical limitations, directly testing hypotheses about the coordination and biochemistry of cell wall synthesis enzymes or architecture has been challenging, and interpretation of data has therefore often relied on circumstantial evidence and implicit assumptions. A number of recent papers have exploited new technologies, like single molecule tracking and real-time, high resolution temporal mapping of cell wall synthesis processes, to address fundamental questions of bacterial cell wall biogenesis. The results have challenged established dogmas and it is therefore timely to integrate new data and old observations into a new model of cell wall biogenesis in rod-shaped bacteria.
细菌细胞壁合成是我们一些最强大抗生素的作用靶点，因此在过去50多年里一直是深入研究的焦点。令人惊讶的是，我们仍然缺乏对细菌如何构建、维持和扩展其细胞壁的基本理解。由于技术限制，直接测试关于细胞壁合成酶的协调和生物化学或结构的假设一直具有挑战性，因此数据解释往往依赖于间接证据和隐含假设。最近的一些论文利用了新技术，如单分子追踪和细胞壁合成过程的实时、高分辨率时间映射，来解决细菌细胞壁生物合成的基本问题。这些结果挑战了既定的教条，因此及时将新数据和旧观察结果整合到杆状细菌细胞壁生物合成的新模型中是很有必要的。
