Tat transport in Escherichia coli requires zwitterionic phosphatidylethanolamine but no specific negatively charged phospholipid

authored by

Claudia Rathmann, Amelie S. Schlösser, Jürgen Schiller, Mikhail Bogdanov, Thomas Brüser

Abstract

Translocation of folded proteins by the Tat system of Escherichia coli is believed to rely on the presence of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and the negatively charged phospholipids cardiolipin (CL) and phosphatidylglycerol (PG). Here, we show that while PE is indeed essential for activity, the Tat system is fully functional in a clsA/clsB/clsC deletion strain lacking CL, and in a pgsA deletion strain lacking both PG and CL during aerobic growth on complex media. In contrast to early studies that relied on strains with reduced lipid levels, this study therefore demonstrates that PG and CL are dispensable for Tat transport. The lack of these lipids may be compensated by other anionic phospholipids such as phosphatidic acid, CDP-diacylglycerol or N-acyl-PE.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Microbiology

External Organisation(s)

Leipzig University
McGovern Medical School

Type

Article

Journal

FEBS letters

Volume

591

Pages

2848-2858

No. of pages

11

ISSN

0014-5793

Publication date

09.2017

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Biophysics, Structural Biology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Cell Biology

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1002/1873-3468.12794 (Access: Open)