Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 327, Issue 5970, Pages 1258-1261Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1186090
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Funding
- Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia and Graduate Program in Areas of Basic and Applied Biology (GABBA)
- Army Research Office [W911NF-09-1-0226]
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Cyanobacterial carbon fixation is a major component of the global carbon cycle. This process requires the carboxysome, an organelle-like proteinaceous microcompartment that sequesters the enzymes of carbon fixation from the cytoplasm. Here, fluorescently tagged carboxysomes were found to be spatially ordered in a linear fashion. As a consequence, cells undergoing division evenly segregated carboxysomes in a nonrandom process. Mutation of the cytoskeletal protein ParA specifically disrupted carboxysome order, promoted random carboxysome segregation during cell division, and impaired carbon fixation after disparate partitioning. Thus, cyanobacteria use the cytoskeleton to control the spatial arrangement of carboxysomes and to optimize the metabolic process of carbon fixation.
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