Characterization of the partitioning system of Myxococcus plasmid pMF1

ParC, a New Partitioning Protein, Is Necessary for the Active Form of ParA From Myxococcus pMF1 Plasmid

The ParABS partitioning system, a main driver of DNA segregation in bacteria, employs two proteins, ParA and ParB, for plasmid partition. The pMF1 plasmid from Myxococcus fulvus 124B02 has a par operon encoding a small acidic protein, ParC, in addition to type I ParA and ParB homologs. Here, we show that expression of parC upstream of parA (as in the natural case), but not ectopic expression, is essential for the plasmid inheritance in Myxococcus cells. Co-expression of parC upstream of parA was determined to form a soluble ParC-ParA heterodimer at a 1:1 ratio, while individual expression of parA or co-expression of parA with ectopic parC formed insoluble ParA proteins. Purified ParA proteins alone had no ATPase activity and was easily dimerized, while mixing ParA with ParC formed the ParC-ParA heterodimer with the ATPase and polymerization activities. Fusing ParC and ParA also produced soluble proteins and some chimeras restored the ATPase activity and plasmid inheritance. The results highlight that proximal location of parC before parA is critical to realize the functions of ParA in the partition of Myxococcus plasmid pMF1 and shed light on a new mechanism to realize a protein function by two separate proteins.

Insights into the persistence and phenotypic effects of the endogenous and cryptic plasmid pMF1 in its host strain Myxococcus fulvus 124B02

Many endogenous plasmids carry no noticeable benefits for their bacterial hosts, and the persistence of these 'cryptic plasmids' and their functional impacts are mostly unclear. In this study, we investigated these uncertainties using the social bacterium Myxococcus fulvus 124B02 and its endogenous plasmid pMF1. pMF1 possesses diverse genes that originated from myxobacteria, suggesting a longstanding co-existence of the plasmid with various myxobacterial species. The curing of pMF1 from 124B02 had almost no phenotypic effects on the host. Laboratory evolution experiments showed that the 124B02 strain retained pMF1 when subcultured on dead Escherichia coli cells but lost pMF1 when subcultured on living E. coli cells or on casitone medium; these results indicated that the persistence of pMF1 in 124B02 was environment-dependent. Curing pMF1 caused the mutant to lose the ability to predate and develop fruiting bodies more quickly than the pMF1-containing strain after they were subcultured on dead E. coli cells, which indicated that the presence of pMF1 in M. fulvus 124B02 has some long-term effects on its host. The results provide some new insights into the persistence and impacts of cryptic plasmids in their natural bacterial cells.

A Post-segregational Killing Mechanism for Maintaining Plasmid PMF1 in Its Myxococcus fulvus Host

Although plasmids provide additional functions for cellular adaptation to the environment, they also create a metabolic burden, which causes the host cells to be less competitive with their siblings. Low-copy-number plasmids have thus evolved several mechanisms for their long-term maintenance in host cells. pMF1, discovered in Myxococcus fulvus 124B02, is the only endogenous autonomously replicated plasmid yet found in myxobacteria. Here we report that a post-segregational killing system, encoded by a co-transcriptional gene pair of pMF1.19 and pMF1.20, is involved in maintaining the pMF1 plasmid in its host cells. We demonstrate that the protein encoded by pMF1.20 is a new kind of nuclease, which is able to cleave DNA in vitro. The nuclease activity can be neutralized by the protein encoded by pMF1.19 through protein–protein interaction, suggesting that the protein is an immune protein for nuclease cleavage. We propose that the post-segregational killing mechanism of the nuclease toxin and immune protein pair encoded by pMF1.20 and pMF1.19 is helpful for the stable maintenance of pMF1 in M. fulvus cells.

The complete genome sequence and analysis of a plasmid-bearing myxobacterial strain Myxococcus fulvus 124B02 (M 206081)

Myxobacteria, phylogenetically located in the delta division of the Proteobacteria, are well known for characterized social behaviors and large genomes of more than 9 Mb in size. Myxococcus fulvus is a typical species of the genus Myxococcus in the family Myxococcaceae. M. fulvus 124B02, originally isolated from a soil sample collected in Northeast China, is the one and only presently known myxobacterial strain that harbors an endogenous autonomously replicating plasmid, named pMF1. The endogenous plasmid is of importance for understanding the genome evolution of myxobacteria, as well as for the development of genetic engineering tools in myxobacteria. Here we describe the complete genome sequence of this organism. M. fulvus 124B02 consists of a circular chromosome with a total length of 11,048,835 bp and a circular plasmid of 18,634 bp. Comparative genomic analyses suggest that pMF1 has a longstanding sustention within myxobacteria, and probably contributes to the genome expansion of myxobacteria.

Characterization of the replication origin of the myxobacterial self-replicative plasmid pMF1

Thus far, pMF1 is the only endogenous myxobacterial plasmid whose replication mechanism is unclear. In this study, we determined that the plasmid replicates via the theta-mode. The pMF1.14 gene, located in the pMF1.13-pMF1.15 operon (repABC), encodes an essential replication initiation protein that was predicted to have no typical DNA/protein binding motifs but contains rich disordered regions. The pMF1 replication-related essential cis-acting DNA region, approximate 370bp, was located within pMF1.14, and was found to contain several directly and inverted atypical repeats. The unique characteristics of the pMF1 replicon are suggested to be the reason for its strict narrow host range in Myxococcus cells.