HetL, HetR and PatS form a reaction-diffusion system to control pattern formation in the cyanobacterium nostoc PCC 7120

eLife

Amel Latifi¹  Véronique Risoul¹  Stéphanie Champ¹  Xiaomei Xu¹  Deborah Byrne²  Badreddine Douzi³ 

[1] Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LCB, Laboratoire de Chimie Bactérienne, Marseille, France;Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Protein Expression Facility, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France;Université de Lorraine, INRAE, DynAMic, Nancy, France;

关键词: cyanobacteria;    nostoc;    cell differentiation;    signaling;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.59190

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Local activation and long-range inhibition are mechanisms conserved in self-organizing systems leading to biological patterns. A number of them involve the production by the developing cell of an inhibitory morphogen, but how this cell becomes immune to self-inhibition is rather unknown. Under combined nitrogen starvation, the multicellular cyanobacterium Nostoc PCC 7120 develops nitrogen-fixing heterocysts with a pattern of one heterocyst every 10–12 vegetative cells. Cell differentiation is regulated by HetR which activates the synthesis of its own inhibitory morphogens, diffusion of which establishes the differentiation pattern. Here, we show that HetR interacts with HetL at the same interface as PatS, and that this interaction is necessary to suppress inhibition and to differentiate heterocysts. hetL expression is induced under nitrogen-starvation and is activated by HetR, suggesting that HetL provides immunity to the heterocyst. This protective mechanism might be conserved in other differentiating cyanobacteria as HetL homologues are spread across the phylum.

【 授权许可】

Unknown