ArticleJournal of bacteriology2013
The Rcs stress response and accessory envelope proteins are required for de novo generation of cell shape in Escherichia coli.
Article in Journal of bacteriology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Bacterial L-forms: Key Mechanisms of Drug Resistance, Disease Recurrence, and Immune Evasion.Indian journal of microbiology · 2026Review
- Prevalence and mechanisms of high-level carbapenem antibiotic tolerance in clinical isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Modulation of bacterial cell size and growth rate via activation of a cell envelope stress response.mBio · 2025Article
- Bacterial cell widening alters periplasmic size and activates envelope stress responses.The EMBO journal · 2025Article
- Lethal perturbation of an Escherichia coli regulatory network is triggered by a restriction-modification system's regulator and can be mitigated by excision of the cryptic prophage Rac.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
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- Escherichia coli has robust regulatory mechanisms against elevated peptidoglycan cleavage by lytic transglycosylases.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2023Article
- Physical properties of the bacterial outer membrane.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2022Review
- High-throughput suppressor screen demonstrates that RcsF monitors outer membrane integrity and not Bam complex function.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Understanding tolerance to cell wall-active antibiotics.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2021Review
- Homeostasis of the Gram-negative cell envelope.Current opinion in microbiology · 2021Review
- L-arabinose induces the formation of viable non-proliferating spheroplasts inApplied and environmental microbiology · 2021Article
- Peptidoglycan: Structure, Synthesis, and Regulation.EcoSal Plus · 2021Article
- Direct Observation of Conversion From Walled Cells to Wall-Deficient L-Form andFrontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- Factors That Affect the Enlargement of Bacterial Protoplasts and Spheroplasts.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Review
- Novobiocin inhibits membrane synthesis and vacuole formation ofMicrobial cell (Graz, Austria) · 2020Article
- An RGB-emitting molecular cocktail for the detection of bacterial fingerprints.Chemical science · 2020Article
- Article
- Spheroplast-Mediated Carbapenem Tolerance in Gram-Negative Pathogens.Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Interactions with immune responses or exposure to certain antibiotics can remove the peptidoglycan wall of many Gram-negative bacteria. Though the spheroplasts thus created usually lyse, some may survive by resynthesizing their walls and shapes. Normally, bacterial morphology is generated by synthetic complexes directed by FtsZ and MreBCD or their homologues, but whether these classic systems can recreate morphology in the absence of a preexisting template is unknown. To address this question, we treated Escherichia coli with lysozyme to remove the peptidoglycan wall while leaving intact the inner and outer membranes and periplasm. The resulting lysozyme-induced (LI) spheroplasts recovered a rod shape after four to six generations. Recovery proceeded via a series of cell divisions that produced misshapen and branched intermediates before later progeny assumed a normal rod shape. Importantly, mutants defective in mounting the Rcs stress response and those lacking penicillin binding protein 1B (PBP1B) or LpoB could not divide or recover their cell shape but instead enlarged until they lysed. LI spheroplasts from mutants lacking the Lpp lipoprotein or PBP6 produced spherical daughter cells that did not recover a normal rod shape or that did so only after a significant delay. Thus, to regenerate normal morphology de novo, E. coli must supplement the classic FtsZ- and MreBCD-directed cell wall systems with activities that are otherwise dispensable for growth under normal laboratory conditions. The existence of these auxiliary mechanisms implies that they may be required for survival in natural environments, where bacterial walls can be damaged extensively or removed altogether.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.