The effect of mutations in spoOA or spoIIA on the pattern of protein synthesis in Bacillus subtilis under sporulation conditions

Abstract

By labelling wild-type Bacillus subtilis for 5 min with [35S]-methionine either at the time of resuspension in starvation medium or 1, 2 or 3 h later, and subjecting cell extracts to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, Yudkin et al. (J. Gen. Microbiol. 1982) detected some 75 proteins whose synthesis started or stopped within the first 3 h of sporulation. Similar experiments have now been done with isogenic strains carrying a spoOA or a spoIIA mutation. The results permit 72 of the changes in protein synthesis to be placed in four classes according to whether they do or do not occur in the mutants as well as in the wild type. The results are in good agreement with the predictions of the ‘dependent-sequence’ hypothesis, which states that each event that occurs in sporulation depends on the successful completion of all preceding events. The pattern of protein synthesis in the spoIIA mutant differed in some respects from the wild type as early as 1 h after resuspension.