Proteins that rescue A-signal-defective mutants of Myxococcus xanthus

The asg mutants of Myxococcus xanthus are defective in the production of an extracellular substance, called A-factor, that is required for expression of a set of fruiting body-specific genes. A-factor is released by wild-type cells (asg+) after 1 to 2 h of development. When A-factor is added to asg mutant cells, it restores expression of their A-factor-dependent genes. Rescue of beta-galactosidase production in an asg mutant carrying the A-factor-dependent lacZ transcriptional fusion (omega 4521) was used to assay A-factor activity. According to this assay, two types of substances with A-factor activity are present in conditioned medium. One type is heat stable and of low molecular weight; the other is heat labile and of high molecular weight. An approximately 27-kDa protein with heat-labile A-factor activity was purified from conditioned medium. The purified protein has proteolytic activity as well as A-factor activity. The substrate specificity of the 27-kDa protease resembles that of trypsin. A smaller protein with both heat-labile A-factor activity and proteolytic activity was identified. Its substrate specificity differs from that of the 27-kDa protein. In addition, trypsin and other proteases were found to have heat-labile A-factor activity. Trypsin inhibitory protein from soybeans neutralizes the A-factor activity of trypsin in parallel with its neutralization of protease activity, showing that the proteolytic activity of trypsin is necessary for its A-factor activity. The 27-kDa protein rescues the aggregation and sporulation defects of an asgB mutant in submerged culture as well as its ability to express beta-galactosidase from an asg-dependent lac fusion.

Control of morphogenesis in myxobacteria

The myxobacteria are Gram-negative soil bacteria that live in large communities known as swarms. The most remarkable characteristic of myxobacteria is their ability to form fruiting bodies that have a species-specific shape and color. Fruiting body formation requires the concerted effort of hundreds of thousands of cells. Development is initiated only when two conditions are satisfied. The cells must be nutritionally deprived (environmental signal) and there must be many other cells in the vicinity (intercellular signal). The development of one species, Myxococcus xanthus, has been studied in the most detail. M. xanthus uses amino acids as its primary carbon, nitrogen, and energy source. Starvation for a single amino acid, or for inorganic phosphate, serves as the environmental signal. A variety of intercellular signals appear to control the initiation of development and the timing of subsequent developmental events.

Cell interactions in myxobacterial growth and development

During their complex life cycle, myxobacteria manifest a number of cell interactions. These include contact-mediated interactions as well as those mediated by soluble extracellular signals. Some of these interactions are well-defined; in addition, the tools for molecular and genetic analysis of these interactions in Myxococcus xanthus are now available.

Ribonucleic acid synthesis during fruiting body formation in Myxococcus xanthus

A method has been devised that allowed us, for the first time, to pulse-label M. xanthus cells with precursors for ribonucleic acid biosynthesis while they were undergoing fruiting body formation. Using this method, we examined patterns of ribonucleic acid (RNA) accumulation throughout the process of fruiting body formation. As development proceeded, the rate of RNA accumulation increased at two periods of the developmental cycle: once just before aggregation and once late in the cycle, when sporulation was essentially completed. In contrast to vegetatively growing cells, in which only stable RNA species are labeled during a 30-min pulse, the majority of radioactivity found in RNA from 30-min pulse-labeled developing cells was found in an unstable heterodisperse fraction that migrated to the 5S to 16S region of sucrose density gradients and sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels. This pattern of incorporation could not be induced (i) by a shift down of vegetatively growing cells to a nutritionally poor medium, in which the generation time was increased to that of developing cells during the growth phase, or (ii) by plating of vegetative cells onto the same solid-surface environment as that of developing cells, but which surface supported vegetative growth rather than fruiting body formation. Thus, the RNA synthesis pattern observed appeared to be related to development per se rather than to nutritional depletion or growth on a solid surface alone. The radioactivity incorporated into the unstable 5S to 16S RNA fraction accumulated as the pulse length was increased from 10 to 30 min; in contrast, an analogous unstable fraction from vegetative cells decreased as pulse length was increased. This suggested that developmental 5S to 16S RNA was more stable than vegetative cell 5S to 16S RNA (presumptive messenger RNA). However, during a 45-min chase period, radioactivity in 30-min-pulse-labeled developmental 5S to 16S RNA decayed to an extent twice that of developmental RNA located in 16S and 23S regions of sucrose density gradients and was considerably less stable than the 5S, 16S, and 23S RNA species labeled during a 30-min pulse of vegetative cells.