Dynamic Assembly/Disassembly of Staphylococcus aureus FtsZ Visualized by High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 22; no. 4; p. 1697
• Main Authors: Fujita, Junso, Sugiyama, Shogo, Terakado, Haruna, Miyazaki, Maho, Ozawa, Mayuki, Ueda, Nanami, Kuroda, Natsuko, Tanaka, Shun-Ichi, Yoshizawa, Takuya, Uchihashi, Takayuki, Matsumura, Hiroyoshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 08-02-2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Atomic force microscopy; Bacteria; bacterial cell division; Bacterial Proteins - chemistry; Cell division; Comparative analysis; Cytoskeletal Proteins - chemistry; Cytoskeleton - chemistry; E coli; Filaments; FtsZ; High speed; high-speed atomic force microscopy; Imaging techniques; Microscopy; Microscopy, Atomic Force - methods; Protein Conformation; Protein Multimerization; Staphylococcus aureus; Staphylococcus aureus - chemistry; Staphylococcus aureus - metabolism; bacterial cell division; high-speed atomic force microscopy; FtsZ; Staphylococcus aureus
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms22041697

FtsZ is a key protein in bacterial cell division and is assembled into filamentous architectures. FtsZ filaments are thought to regulate bacterial cell division and have been investigated using many types of imaging techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), but the time scale of the method was too long to trace the filament formation process. Development of high-speed AFM enables us to achieve sub-second time resolution and visualize the formation and dissociation process of FtsZ filaments. The analysis of the growth and dissociation rates of the C-terminal truncated FtsZ (FtsZt) filaments indicate the net growth and dissociation of FtsZt filaments in the growth and dissociation conditions, respectively. We also analyzed the curvatures of the full-length FtsZ (FtsZf) and FtsZt filaments, and the comparative analysis indicated the straight-shape preference of the FtsZt filaments than those of FtsZf. These findings provide insights into the fundamental dynamic behavior of FtsZ protofilaments and bacterial cell division.