Department of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, 20815, MD, USA.
Mol Microbiol. 2021 Jun;115(6):1170-1180. doi: 10.1111/mmi.14660. Epub 2020 Dec 19.
Bacterial cells are surrounded by a peptidoglycan (PG) cell wall. This structure is essential for cell integrity and its biogenesis pathway is a key antibiotic target. Most bacteria utilize two types of synthases that polymerize glycan strands and crosslink them: class A penicillin-binding proteins (aPBPs) and complexes of SEDS proteins and class B PBPs (bPBPs). Although the enzymatic steps of PG synthesis are well characterized, the steps involved in terminating PG glycan polymerization remain poorly understood. A few years ago, the conserved lytic transglycosylase MltG was identified as a potential terminase for PG synthesis in Escherichia coli. However, characterization of the in vivo function of MltG was hampered by the lack of a growth or morphological phenotype in ΔmltG cells. Here, we report the isolation of MltG-defective mutants as suppressors of lethal deficits in either aPBP or SEDS/bPBP PG synthase activity. We used this phenotype to perform a domain-function analysis for MltG, which revealed that access to the inner membrane is important for its in vivo activity. Overall, our results support a model in which MltG functions as a terminase for both classes of PG synthases by cleaving PG glycans as they are being actively synthesized.
细菌细胞被一层肽聚糖(PG)细胞壁所包围。该结构对细胞完整性至关重要,其生物发生途径是抗生素的重要靶点。大多数细菌利用两种聚糖链聚合和交联的合成酶:A 类青霉素结合蛋白(aPBPs)和 SEDS 蛋白与 B 类 PBPs(bPBPs)的复合物。尽管 PG 合成的酶促步骤已经得到很好的描述,但终止 PG 聚糖聚合的步骤仍知之甚少。几年前,保守的溶菌转糖基酶 MltG 被鉴定为大肠杆菌 PG 合成的潜在终止酶。然而,由于在ΔmltG 细胞中缺乏生长或形态表型,MltG 的体内功能的表征受到阻碍。在这里,我们报告了 MltG 缺陷突变体的分离,作为 aPBP 或 SEDS/bPBP PG 合成酶活性丧失的致死缺陷的抑制剂。我们利用这一表型对 MltG 进行了结构-功能分析,结果表明,进入内膜对其体内活性很重要。总的来说,我们的结果支持了这样一种模型,即 MltG 通过切割正在被积极合成的 PG 聚糖,作为两种 PG 合成酶的终止酶发挥作用。