From conservation to structure, studies of magnetosome associated cation diffusion facilitators (CDF) proteins in Proteobacteria

PLoS One. 2020 Apr 20;15(4):e0231839. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231839. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are prokaryotes that sense the geomagnetic field lines to geolocate and navigate in aquatic sediments. They are polyphyletically distributed in several bacterial divisions but are mainly represented in the Proteobacteria. In this phylum, magnetotactic Deltaproteobacteria represent the most ancestral class of MTB. Like all MTB, they synthesize membrane-enclosed magnetic nanoparticles, called magnetosomes, for magnetic sensing. Magnetosome biogenesis is a complex process involving a specific set of genes that are conserved across MTB. Two of the most conserved genes are mamB and mamM, that encode for the magnetosome-associated proteins and are homologous to the cation diffusion facilitator (CDF) protein family. In magnetotactic Alphaproteobacteria MTB species, MamB and MamM proteins have been well characterized and play a central role in iron-transport required for biomineralization. However, their structural conservation and their role in more ancestral groups of MTB like the Deltaproteobacteria have not been established. Here we studied magnetite cluster MamB and MamM cytosolic C-terminal domain (CTD) structures from a phylogenetically distant magnetotactic Deltaproteobacteria species represented by BW-1 strain, which has the unique ability to biomineralize magnetite and greigite. We characterized them in solution, analyzed their crystal structures and compared them to those characterized in Alphaproteobacteria MTB species. We showed that despite the high phylogenetic distance, MamBBW-1 and MamMBW-1 CTDs share high structural similarity with known CDF-CTDs and will probably share a common function with the Alphaproteobacteria MamB and MamM.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alphaproteobacteria / chemistry
  • Alphaproteobacteria / genetics
  • Alphaproteobacteria / metabolism
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Bacterial Proteins / chemistry
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics
  • Bacterial Proteins / metabolism*
  • Biomineralization
  • Carrier Proteins / chemistry
  • Carrier Proteins / genetics
  • Carrier Proteins / metabolism*
  • Cations / metabolism*
  • Conserved Sequence
  • Deltaproteobacteria / chemistry
  • Deltaproteobacteria / genetics
  • Deltaproteobacteria / metabolism
  • Ion Transport
  • Magnetosomes / chemistry
  • Magnetosomes / genetics
  • Magnetosomes / metabolism*
  • Models, Molecular
  • Phylogeny
  • Protein Conformation
  • Proteobacteria / chemistry
  • Proteobacteria / genetics
  • Proteobacteria / metabolism*
  • Sequence Alignment

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Carrier Proteins
  • Cations

Grants and funding

The authors of this work are supported by the Israel Ministry of Science, Technology, and Space (R.Z.), the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 167/16; R.Z.) and the European Molecular Biology Organization and CMST COST Action CM1306 (R.Z.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.