Abstract
Chemosensory systems are highly organized signaling pathways that allow bacteria to adapt to environmental changes. The Frz chemosensory system from M. xanthus possesses two CheW-like proteins, FrzA (the core CheW) and FrzB. We found that FrzB does not interact with FrzE (the cognate CheA) as it lacks the amino acid region responsible for this interaction. FrzB, instead, acts upstream of FrzCD in the regulation of M. xanthus chemotaxis behaviors and activates the Frz pathway by allowing the formation and distribution of multiple chemosensory clusters on the nucleoid. These results, together, show that the lack of the CheA-interacting region in FrzB confers new functions to this small protein.
Highlights
Chemosensory systems are specialized regulatory pathways that allow bacteria to perceive their external environment and respond with various cellular behaviors [1,2,3]
We show that FrzB is a divergent CheW lacking the β-strands involved in the interaction with the histidine kinase FrzE (β4 and β5)
The aberrant behaviors at the colony level are due to the inability of ΔfrzA strains to modulate single-cell reversal frequencies even in the presence of isoamyl alcohol (IAA), a known Frz activator (Fig 2B) [20,22]
Summary
Chemosensory systems are specialized regulatory pathways that allow bacteria to perceive their external environment and respond with various cellular behaviors [1,2,3]. Environmental signals are transduced inside the cells, initially by receptors called
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