Publication Date:
2014-01-28
Description:
What mechanisms underlie the transitions responsible for the diverse shapes observed in the living world? Although bacteria exhibit a myriad of morphologies, the mechanisms responsible for the evolution of bacterial cell shape are not understood. We investigated morphological diversity in a group of bacteria that synthesize an appendage-like extension of the cell envelope called the stalk. The location and number of stalks varies among species, as exemplified by three distinct subcellular positions of stalks within a rod-shaped cell body: polar in the genus Caulobacter and subpolar or bilateral in the genus Asticcacaulis. Here we show that a developmental regulator of Caulobacter crescentus, SpmX, is co-opted in the genus Asticcacaulis to specify stalk synthesis either at the subpolar or bilateral positions. We also show that stepwise evolution of a specific region of SpmX led to the gain of a new function and localization of this protein, which drove the sequential transition in stalk positioning. Our results indicate that changes in protein function, co-option and modularity are key elements in the evolution of bacterial morphology. Therefore, similar evolutionary principles of morphological transitions apply to both single-celled prokaryotes and multicellular eukaryotes.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035126/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035126/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jiang, Chao -- Brown, Pamela J B -- Ducret, Adrien -- Brun, Yves V -- AI072992/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ -- GM051986/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM051986/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- S10RR028697-01/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/ -- England -- Nature. 2014 Feb 27;506(7489):489-93. doi: 10.1038/nature12900. Epub 2014 Jan 19.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA. ; 1] Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA [2] Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24463524" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Bacteria/*cytology/*metabolism
;
Bacterial Proteins/*metabolism
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Caulobacter crescentus/cytology/metabolism
;
Caulobacteraceae/cytology/metabolism
;
Cell Membrane/metabolism
;
*Cell Polarity
;
Evolution, Molecular
;
Models, Biological
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Phylogeny
;
Protein Transport
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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