Examinando por Autor "Gueiros-Filho, Frederico J."

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    Revisiting the cell biology of the acyl-ACP:phosphate transacylase PlsX suggests that the phospholipid synthesis and cell division machineries are not coupled in Bacillus subtilis
    (Wiley, 2016-05-06) Sastre, Diego Emiliano; Bisson-Filho, Alexandre; De Mendoza, Diego; Gueiros-Filho, Frederico J.
    PlsX is a central enzyme of phospholipid synthesis in bacteria, converting acyl-ACP to acyl-phosphate on the pathway to phosphatidic acid formation. PlsX has received attention because it plays a key role in the coordination of fatty acid and phospholipid synthesis. Recently, PlsX was also suggested to coordinate membrane synthesis with cell division in Bacillus subtilis. Here, we have re-investigated the cell biology of PlsX and determined that the enzyme is uniformly distributed on the membrane of most cells, but occasionally appears as membrane foci as well. Foci and homogenous patterns seem freely interconvertible but the prevalence of the uniform staining suggests that PlsX does not need to localize to specific sites to function correctly. We also investigated the relationship between PlsX and the divisome. In contrast to previous observations, PlsX's foci showed no obvious periodicity of localization and did not colocalize with the divisome. Furthermore, depletion of PlsX did not affect cell division if phospholipid synthesis is maintained by an alternative enzyme. These results suggest that coordination between division and membrane synthesis may not require physical or functional interactions between the divisome and phospholipid synthesis enzymes.
  • Miniatura
    ÍtemAcceso Abierto
    The phosphatidic acid pathway enzyme PlsX plays both catalytic and channeling roles in bacterial phospholipid synthesis
    (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2020-01-09) Sastre, Diego Emiliano; Pulschen, André A.; Basso , Luis G.M.; Benites Pariente, Jhonathan S.; Marques Netto, Caterina G.C.; Machinandiarena, Federico; Albanesi, Daniela; Navarro, Marcos V.A.S.; De Mendoza, Diego; Gueiros-Filho, Frederico J.
    PlsX is the first enzyme in the pathway that produces phosphatidic acid in Gram-positive bacteria. It makes acylphosphate from acyl-acyl carrier protein (acyl-ACP) and is also involved in coordinating phospholipid and fatty acid biosyntheses. PlsX is a peripheral membrane enzyme in Bacillus subtilis, but how it associates with the membrane remains largely unknown. In the present study, using fluorescence microscopy, liposome sedimentation, differential scanning calorimetry, and acyltransferase assays, we determined that PlsX binds directly to lipid bilayers and identified its membrane anchoring moiety, consisting of a hydrophobic loop located at the tip of two amphipathic dimerization helices. To establish the role of the membrane association of PlsX in acylphosphate synthesis and in the flux through the phosphatidic acid pathway, we then created mutations and gene fusions that prevent PlsX's interaction with the membrane. Interestingly, phospholipid synthesis was severely hampered in cells in which PlsX was detached from the membrane, and results from metabolic labeling indicated that these cells accumulated free fatty acids. Because the same mutations did not affect PlsX transacylase activity, we conclude that membrane association is required for the proper delivery of PlsX's product to PlsY, the next enzyme in the phosphatidic acid pathway. We conclude that PlsX plays a dual role in phospholipid synthesis, acting both as a catalyst and as a chaperone protein that mediates substrate channeling into the pathway.
  • Miniatura
    ÍtemAcceso Abierto
    The stringent response plays a key role in Bacillus subtilis survival of fatty acid starvation
    (Wiley, 2017-02-07) Pulschen, André A.; Sastre, Diego Emiliano; Machinandiarena, Federico; Crotta Asis, Agostina; Albanesi, Daniela; De Mendoza, Diego; Gueiros-Filho, Frederico J.
    The stringent response is a universal adaptive mechanism to protect bacteria from nutritional and environmental stresses. The role of the stringent response during lipid starvation has been studied only in Gram-negative bacteria. Here, we report that the stringent response also plays a crucial role in the adaptation of the model Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis to fatty acid starvation. B. subtilis lacking all three (p)ppGpp-synthetases (RelBs, RelP and RelQ) or bearing a RelBs variant that no longer synthesizes (p)ppGpp suffer extreme loss of viability on lipid starvation. Loss of viability is paralleled by perturbation of membrane integrity and function, with collapse of membrane potential as the likely cause of death. Although no increment of (p)ppGpp could be detected in lipid starved B. subtilis, we observed a substantial increase in the GTP/ATP ratio of strains incapable of synthesizing (p)ppGpp. Artificially lowering GTP with decoyinine rescued viability of such strains, confirming observations that low intracellular GTP is important for survival of nutritional stresses. Altogether, our results show that activation of the stringent response by lipid starvation is a broadly conserved response of bacteria and that a key role of (p)ppGpp is to couple biosynthetic processes that become detrimental if uncoordinated.