Mechanics and dynamics of translocating MreB filaments on curved membranes
- Harvard University, United States
Abstract
MreB is an actin homolog that is essential for coordinating the cell wall synthesis required for the rod shape of many bacteria. Previously we have shown that filaments of MreB bind to the curved membranes of bacteria and translocate in directions determined by principal membrane curvatures to create and reinforce the rod shape (Hussain et al., 2018). Here, in order to understand how MreB filament dynamics affects their cellular distribution, we model how MreB filaments bind and translocate on membranes with different geometries. We find that it is both energetically favorable and robust for filaments to bind and orient along directions of largest membrane curvature. Furthermore, significant localization to different membrane regions results from processive MreB motion in various geometries. These results demonstrate that the in vivo localization of MreB observed in many different experiments, including those examining negative Gaussian curvature, can arise from translocation dynamics alone.
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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.
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Funding
National Science Foundation (DGE1144152)
- Felix Wong
National Institutes of Health (DP2AI117923-01)
- Ethan C Garner
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2019, Wong et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Mechanics and dynamics of translocating MreB filaments on curved membranes
eLife 8:e40472.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.40472
