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CozEa and CozEb play overlapping and essential roles in controlling cell division in Staphylococcus aureus
Author(s) -
Stamsås Gro Anita,
Myrbråten Ine Storaker,
Straume Daniel,
Salehian Zhian,
Veening JanWillem,
Håvarstein Leiv Sigve,
Kjos Morten
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
molecular microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.857
H-Index - 247
eISSN - 1365-2958
pISSN - 0950-382X
DOI - 10.1111/mmi.13999
Subject(s) - biology , cell division , microbiology and biotechnology , staphylococcus aureus , ftsz , cell , gene knockdown , mutant , genetics , gene , bacteria
Summary Staphylococcus aureus needs to control the position and timing of cell division and cell wall synthesis to maintain its spherical shape. We identified two membrane proteins, named CozEa and CozEb, which together are important for proper cell division in S. aureus . CozEa and CozEb are homologs of the cell elongation regulator CozE Spn of Streptococcus pneumoniae . While cozEa and cozEb were not essential individually, the Δ cozEa Δ cozEb double mutant was lethal. To study the functions of cozEa and cozEb , we constructed a CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) system for S. aureus , allowing transcriptional knockdown of essential genes. CRISPRi knockdown of cozEa in the Δ cozEb strain (and vice versa) causes cell morphological defects and aberrant nucleoid staining, showing that cozEa and cozEb have overlapping functions and are important for normal cell division. We found that CozEa and CozEb interact with and possibly influence localization of the cell division protein EzrA. Furthermore, the CozE‐EzrA interaction is conserved in S. pneumoniae , and cell division is mislocalized in cozE Spn ‐depleted S. pneumoniae cells. Together, our results show that CozE proteins mediate control of cell division in S. aureus and S. pneumoniae , likely via interactions with key cell division proteins such as EzrA.