Septal Wall Synthesis Is Sufficient to Change Ameba-Like Cells Into Uniform Oval-Shaped Cells in Escherichia coli L-forms

Authors

Masafumi Hayashi
Chigusa Takaoka
Koichi Higashi
Ken Kurokawa
William Margolin
Taku Oshima
Daisuke Shiomi

Publication Date

11-26-2024

Journal

Communications Biology

Abstract

A cell wall is required to control cell shape and size to maintain growth and division. However, some bacterial species maintain their morphology and size without a cell wall, calling into question the importance of the cell wall to maintain shape and size. It has been very difficult to examine the dispensability of cell wall synthesis in rod-shaped bacteria such as Escherichia coli for maintenance of their shape and size because they lyse without cell walls under normal culture conditions. Here, we show that wall-less E. coli L-form cells, which have a heterogeneous cell morphology, can be converted to a mostly uniform oval shape solely by FtsZ-dependent division, even in the absence of cylindrical cell wall synthesis. This FtsZ-dependent control of cell shape and size in the absence of a cell wall requires at least either the Min or nucleoid occlusion systems for positioning FtsZ at mid cell division sites.

Keywords

Escherichia coli, Cytoskeletal Proteins, Cell Wall, Escherichia coli Proteins, Bacterial Proteins, Cell Division, L Forms

DOI

10.1038/s42003-024-07279-y

PMID

39587276

PMCID

PMC11589767

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

11-26-2024

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes