TY - JOUR TI - MreB filaments align along greatest principal membrane curvature to orient cell wall synthesis AU - Hussain, Saman AU - Wivagg, Carl N AU - Szwedziak, Piotr AU - Wong, Felix AU - Schaefer, Kaitlin AU - Izoré, Thierry AU - Renner, Lars D AU - Holmes, Matthew J AU - Sun, Yingjie AU - Bisson-Filho, Alexandre W AU - Walker, Suzanne AU - Amir, Ariel AU - Löwe, Jan AU - Garner, Ethan C A2 - Mignot, Tâm VL - 7 PY - 2018 DA - 2018/02/22 SP - e32471 C1 - eLife 2018;7:e32471 DO - 10.7554/eLife.32471 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32471 AB - MreB is essential for rod shape in many bacteria. Membrane-associated MreB filaments move around the rod circumference, helping to insert cell wall in the radial direction to reinforce rod shape. To understand how oriented MreB motion arises, we altered the shape of Bacillus subtilis. MreB motion is isotropic in round cells, and orientation is restored when rod shape is externally imposed. Stationary filaments orient within protoplasts, and purified MreB tubulates liposomes in vitro, orienting within tubes. Together, this demonstrates MreB orients along the greatest principal membrane curvature, a conclusion supported with biophysical modeling. We observed that spherical cells regenerate into rods in a local, self-reinforcing manner: rapidly propagating rods emerge from small bulges, exhibiting oriented MreB motion. We propose that the coupling of MreB filament alignment to shape-reinforcing peptidoglycan synthesis creates a locally-acting, self-organizing mechanism allowing the rapid establishment and stable maintenance of emergent rod shape. KW - cell shape KW - self organization KW - cell wall KW - Bacillus subtilis KW - peptidoglycan KW - actin JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -