Protein sorting and thylakoid membrane biogenesis in cyanobacteria: role of mRNA localisation

Conrad Mullineaux (primary)
School of Biological & Chemical Sciences
Queen Mary, University of London
Dr Christoph Engl (secondary)
School of Biological & Chemical Sciences
Queen Mary, University of London

Abstract

Unusually for prokaryotes, cyanobacteria have a complex intracytoplasmic membrane system: the thylakoid membranes. The thylakoid membrane proteome is strikingly different from that of the plasma membrane. The factors that direct some proteins to the thylakoids and others to the plasma membrane remain unknown. Recent work suggests that localised protein synthesis centres play a major role in thylakoid membrane biogenesis, predicting that mRNAs encoding thylakoid proteins should be localised to these centres. We will use single-molecule RNA-FISH to probe mRNA localisation, testing the hypothesis that the signals that direct proteins to specific membranes reside in the mRNA, not the polypeptide.


References

Bryan SJ, Burroughs NJ, Shevela D, Yu J, Liu L-N, Mastroianni G, Xue Q, Llorente-Garcia I, Leake MC, Eichacker L, Schneider D, Nixon PJ, Mullineaux CW (2014) Localisation and interactions of the Vipp1 protein in cyanobacteria. Mol. Microbiol. 94, 1179-1195.

Sacharz J, Bryan SJ, Yu J, Burroughs NJ, Spence EM, Nixon PJ, Mullineaux CW (2015) Sub-cellular location of FtsH proteases in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 suggests localised PSII repair zones in the thylakoid membranes. Mol. Microbiol. 96, 448-462.

Casella S, Huang F, Mason D, Zhao G-Y, Johnson GN, Mullineaux CW, Liu L-N (2017) Dissecting the native architecture and dynamics of cyanobacterial photosynthetic machinery. Mol. Plant 10: 1434-1448.

Skinner SO, Sepúlveda LA, Heng X, Golding l (2013) Measuring mRNA copy-number in individual Escherichia coli cells using single-molecule fluorescent in situ hybridization (smFISH). Nat Protoc 8: 1100–1113.


BBSRC Area
Plants, microbes, food and sustainability
Area of Biology
Cell BiologyMicrobiology
Techniques & Approaches
BiochemistryBioinformaticsImage ProcessingMicroscopy / ElectrophysiologyMolecular Biology