Sylvia Chareyre, Xuesong Li, Brandon R Anjuwon-Foster, Taylor B Updegrove, Sarah Clifford, Anna P Brogan, Yijun Su, Lixia Zhang, Jiji Chen, Hari Shroff, Kumaran S Ramamurthi
When faced with starvation, the bacterium Bacillus subtilis transforms itself into a dormant cell type called a "spore". Sporulation initiates with an asymmetric division event, which requires the relocation of the core divisome components FtsA and FtsZ, after which the sigma factor σF is exclusively activated in the smaller daughter cell. Compartment-specific activation of σF requires the SpoIIE phosphatase, which displays a biased localization on one side of the asymmetric division septum and associates with the structural protein DivIVA, but the mechanism by which this preferential localization is achieved is unclear...
March 26, 2024: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America