Abstract
Peptidoglycan (PG) is the main component of bacterial cell walls and the target for many antibiotics. PG biosynthesis is tightly coordinated with cell wall growth and turnover, and many of these control activities depend upon PASTA-domain containing eukaryotic-like serine/threonine protein kinases (PASTA-eSTK) that sense PG fragments. However, only a few PG biosynthetic enzymes are direct kinase substrates. Here, we identify the conserved ReoM protein as a novel PASTA-eSTK substrate in the Gram-positive pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. Our data show that the phosphorylation of ReoM is essential as it controls ClpCP-dependent proteolytic degradation of the essential enzyme MurA, which catalyses the first committed step in PG biosynthesis. We also identify ReoY as a second novel factor required for degradation of ClpCP substrates. Collectively, our data imply that the first committed step of PG biosynthesis is activated through control of ClpCP protease activity in response to signals of PG homeostasis imbalance.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (HA 6830/1-1)
- Sven Halbedel
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (HA 6830/1-2)
- Sven Halbedel
Fonds der chemischen Industrie (661460)
- Sven Halbedel
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/M011186/1)
- Richard J Lewis
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Bavesh D Kana, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Publication history
- Received: February 14, 2020
- Accepted: May 27, 2020
- Accepted Manuscript published: May 29, 2020 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: June 10, 2020 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2020, Wamp 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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