Mutants, suppressors, and wrinkled colonies: mutant alleles of the cell division gene ftsQ point to functional domains in FtsQ and a role for domain 1C of FtsA in divisome assembly.

ABSTRACT: Cell division in Escherichia coli requires the concerted action of at least 10 essential proteins. One of these proteins, FtsQ, is physically associated with multiple essential division proteins, including FtsK, FtsL, FtsB, FtsW, and FtsI. In this work we performed a genetic analysis of the ftsQ gene. Our studies identified C-terminal residues essential for FtsQ's interaction with two downstream proteins, FtsL and FtsB. Here we also describe a novel screen for cell division mutants based on a wrinkled-colony morphology, which yielded several new point mutations in ftsQ. Two of these mutations affect localization of FtsQ to midcell and together define a targeting role for FtsQ's alpha domain. Further characterization of one localization-defective mutant protein [FtsQ(V92D)] revealed an unex

SUBMITTER: Goehring NW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1797389 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature