Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America.
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 May 10;16(5):e0245710. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245710. eCollection 2021.
Buchnera aphidicola is an intracellular bacterial symbiont of aphids and maintains a small genome of only 600 kbps. Buchnera is thought to maintain only genes relevant to the symbiosis with its aphid host. Curiously, the Buchnera genome contains gene clusters coding for flagellum basal body structural proteins and for flagellum type III export machinery. These structures have been shown to be highly expressed and present in large numbers on Buchnera cells. No recognizable pathogenicity factors or secreted proteins have been identified in the Buchnera genome, and the relevance of this protein complex to the symbiosis is unknown. Here, we show isolation of Buchnera flagellum basal body proteins from the cellular membrane of Buchnera, confirming the enrichment of flagellum basal body proteins relative to other proteins in the Buchnera proteome. This will facilitate studies of the structure and function of the Buchnera flagellum structure, and its role in this model symbiosis.
蚜柄菌是一种寄生于蚜虫体内的小型胞内共生细菌，其基因组大小仅为 600kbp。蚜柄菌被认为只保留了与其蚜虫宿主共生相关的基因。奇怪的是，蚜柄菌基因组中包含编码鞭毛基体结构蛋白和鞭毛 III 型输出机制的基因簇。这些结构已被证明在蚜柄菌细胞中大量表达并存在。在蚜柄菌基因组中未发现可识别的致病性因子或分泌蛋白，该蛋白复合物与共生的相关性尚不清楚。在这里，我们从蚜柄菌的细胞膜中分离出蚜柄菌鞭毛基体蛋白，证实了鞭毛基体蛋白相对于蚜柄菌蛋白质组中的其他蛋白的富集。这将有助于研究蚜柄菌鞭毛结构的结构和功能及其在该模型共生中的作用。
