The <i>Bacillus subtilis</i> essential gene <i>dgkB</i> is dispensable in mutants with defective lipoteichoic acid synthesis

Lipoteichoic Acids, Phosphate-Containing Polymers in the Envelope of Gram-Positive Bacteria

“…To date, the molecular mechanisms whereby teichoic acids can contribute to the integrity of the bacterial cell wall envelope or to bacterial growth have remained poorly understood. Nonetheless, we have learned that type I LTA is positioned at the crossroads of several biosynthesis pathways that are perturbed by the accumulation or depletion of metabolites such as DAG, lipids, UDP-Glc, and cyclic-di-AMP (105,108,109). Only few of the enzymes that are involved in the synthesis of type I LTA synthesis have been examined in detail, and this gap needs to be addressed.…”

“…For example, the B. subtilis housekeeping ltaS gene yflE was identified in a screen for suppressors of the Mg 2ϩ -dependent growth defect of mbl mutants, a gene otherwise required for elongation of rod-shaped bacteria (81). Another investigation revealed that disruption of B. subtilis yflE or yfnI suppresses the lethality caused by dgkB repression (108). DAG is phosphorylated by diacylglycerol (diglyceride) kinase (DgkB) and thereby shunted into phosphatidylglycerol synthesis (Fig.…”

“…LtaS enzymes hydrolyze PG, a process that results in polymerization of poly(Gro-P) and formation of the byproduct DAG. The loss of viability of dgkB mutants has been attributed to accumulation of DAG, and it seems plausible that mutations in ltaS can alleviate this phenotype (108). In S. aureus, the growth defect caused by loss of LTA in an ltaS mutant could be rescued by inactivation of gdpP (109), a phosphodiesterase that hydrolyzes the essential signaling molecule cyclic-di-AMP (110).…”

Synthesis and function of phospholipids in Staphylococcus aureus

“…Structure and catalytic mechanism of S. aureus DgkB have been solved (Miller et al, 2008). The dgkB gene is essential in B. subtilis unless LTA synthesis is blocked, in which case DAG recycling becomes obsolete (Matsuoka et al, 2011). Constant breakdown and resynthesis of PG enables S. aureus to tolerate substantial amounts of phospholipid degradation by antimicrobial mammalian phospholipase A2 (Foreman-Wykert et al, 2000).…”

The membrane: transertion as an organizing principle in membrane heterogeneity

“…The locations of these enzymes thus differ from the cytoplasmic location of GpsA, which catalyzes the production of G3P (Nishibori et al, 2005; Figure 3 ), and the uniformly distributed locations of the membrane proteins AtpC, a subunit of ATP synthase, and SecY (Matsumoto et al, 2012). It has also been shown that the enzymes for lipoteichoic acid (LTA) synthesis, LtaS and YfnI, are septally localized (Schirner et al, 2009; Matsuoka et al, 2011b), but DG kinase (DgkB), which converts DG that is produced in LTA synthesis into PA, is not localized (Matsuoka et al, 2011b). …”