Perturbed N-glycosylation of Halobacterium salinarum archaellum filaments leads to filament bundling and compromised cell motility.
Nat Commun
; 15(1): 5841, 2024 Jul 11.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38992036
ABSTRACT
The swimming device of archaea-the archaellum-presents asparagine (N)-linked glycans. While N-glycosylation serves numerous roles in archaea, including enabling their survival in extreme environments, how this post-translational modification contributes to cell motility remains under-explored. Here, we report the cryo-EM structure of archaellum filaments from the haloarchaeon Halobacterium salinarum, where archaellins, the building blocks of the archaellum, are N-glycosylated, and the N-glycosylation pathway is well-resolved. We further determined structures of archaellum filaments from two N-glycosylation mutant strains that generate truncated glycans and analyzed their motility. While cells from the parent strain exhibited unidirectional motility, the N-glycosylation mutant strain cells swam in ever-changing directions within a limited area. Although these mutant strain cells presented archaellum filaments that were highly similar in architecture to those of the parent strain, N-linked glycan truncation greatly affected interactions between archaellum filaments, leading to dramatic clustering of both isolated and cell-attached filaments. We propose that the N-linked tetrasaccharides decorating archaellins act as physical spacers that minimize the archaellum filament aggregation that limits cell motility.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Halobacterium salinarum
/
Proteínas Arqueais
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article