Mycobacterium smegmatis

Summary

Mycobacterium smegmatis is an acid-fast bacterial species in the phylum Actinomycetota and the genus Mycobacterium. It is 3.0 to 5.0 μm long with a bacillus shape and can be stained by Ziehl–Neelsen method and the auramine-rhodamine fluorescent method. It was first reported in November 1884 by Lustgarten, who found a bacillus with the staining appearance of tubercle bacilli in syphilitic chancres. Subsequent to this, Alvarez and Tavel found organisms similar to that described by Lustgarten also in normal genital secretions (smegma). This organism was later named M. smegmatis. Some species of the genus Mycobacterium have recently been renamed to Mycolicibacterium, so that M. smegmatis is now Mycolicibacterium smegmatis. M. smegmatis, which was previously considered a nonmotile organism, uses a sliding mechanism that allows it to move around its environment. Henrichsen defines it as, “a kind of surface translocation produced by the expansive forces in a growing culture in combination with special surface properties of the cells resulting in reduced friction between cell and substrate”. Essentially, the bacteria form a single-layered sheet and are able to move slowly together without the use of any extracellular structures, like flagella or pili. Although it hasn’t been determined exactly how this mechanism works, the surface properties of the unique cell wall (Figure 1) of M. smegmatis have been found to play a role. For example, this sliding ability is correlated with the presence of glycopeptidolipids (GLPs) on the outermost part of the cell wall. GLPs are amphiphilic molecules that could potentially decrease surface interactions or create a conditioning film that allows movement. Although the exact role of GLPs in sliding is not known, without them M. smegmatis does not have the ability to translocate. M. smegmatis is generally considered a non-pathogenic microorganism; however, in some very rare cases, it may cause disease. Mycobacterium smegmatis is useful for the research analysis of other Mycobacteria species in laboratory experiments.

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterium_smegmatis

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Propagation of microorganisms is based on three fundamental processes: cell growth, DNA replication, and cell division. Although important for antibacterial drug development, these processes are poorly understood in Actinobacteria, a medically important phylum that includes Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Using microfluidic cultures and time-lapse microscopy, we studied single-cell growth, DNA replication, and cell division in the model organism Mycobacterium smegmatis.M. smegmatis is rod-shaped and grows by tip elongation in a biphasic manner due to a "new end take-off" (NETO) event. We find that pole elongation speed is increased and NETO occurs earlier in fast-growing cells than in slow-growing cells. As a consequence of variable timing of NETO, single-cell growth can be monophasic, biphasic, or triphasic. We propose that cells optimize pole growth speed and the timing of NETO to maximize their overall growth.We show that fast-growing cells initiate DNA replication earlier than slow-growing cells. We also find that single-cell growth speed is linked to cell-cycle progression, which is similar when comparing cells growing at the same speed under different conditions. We also report that multifork replication occurs when the time between DNA replication initiation events is shorter than the C period, which may occur even in slow-growing cells with interdivision times longer than the C period.Division site selection in many bacteria is governed by the nucleoid occlusion (Noc) and minicell (Min) systems. Mycobacteria do not encode homologs of these proteins and have no known mechanism for division site selection. We found that the DNA replisome and cell division ring colocalize and move together in a biphasic trajectory determined by the chromosome partitioning (Par) system. We propose a model in which Par-dependent movement of the replisome and division ring ultimately determines the site of cell division.Coordination of cell growth and division is required for cell size homeostasis. Three models of division control have been proposed: sizer (cells divide after reaching a critical size), timer (cells divide at a certain time after birth), and adder (cells add a specific amount of mass before dividing). We show that the single-cell growth model (exponential, linear, or bilinear) constrains the possible division control models. Thus, it is crucial to know the true model of single-cell growth in order to distinguish the true mechanism of cell size homeostasis.

EPFL2021

Revealing Antibiotic Tolerance of the Mycobacterium smegmatis Xanthine/Uracil Permease Mutant Using Microfluidics and Single-Cell Analysis

John McKinney, Neeraj Dhar, Meltem Elitas

To reveal rare phenotypes in bacterial populations, conventional microbiology tools should be advanced to generate rapid, quantitative, accurate, and high-throughput data. The main drawbacks of widely used traditional methods for antibiotic studies include low sampling rate and averaging data for population measurements. To overcome these limitations, microfluidic-microscopy systems have great promise to produce quantitative single-cell data with high sampling rates. Using Mycobacterium smegmatis cells, we applied both conventional assays and a microfluidic-microscopy method to reveal the antibiotic tolerance mechanisms of wild-type and msm2570::Tn mutant cells. Our results revealed that the enhanced antibiotic tolerance mechanism of the msm2570::Tn mutant was due to the low number of lysed cells during the antibiotic exposure compared to wild-type cells. This is the first study to characterize the antibiotic tolerance phenotype of the msm2570::Tn mutant, which has a transposon insertion in the msm2570 gene-encoding a putative xanthine/uracil permease, which functions in the uptake of nitrogen compounds during nitrogen limitation. The experimental results indicate that the msm2570::Tn mutant can be further interrogated to reveal antibiotic killing mechanisms, in particular, antibiotics that target cell wall integrity.

MDPI2021

An Amidase_3 domain-containing N-acetylmuramyl-L-alanine amidase is required for mycobacterial cell division

Neeraj Dhar, Ashima Bhaskar, Dong Li

Mycobacteria possess a multi-layered cell wall that requires extensive remodelling during cell division. We investigated the role of an amidase_3 domain-containing N-acetylmuramyl-L-alanine amidase, a peptidoglycan remodelling enzyme implicated in cell division. We demonstrated that deletion of MSMEG_6281 (Ami1) in Mycobacterium smegmatis resulted in the formation of cellular chains, illustrative of cells that were unable to complete division. Suprisingly, viability in the Delta ami1 mutant was maintained through atypical lateral branching, the products of which proceeded to form viable daughter cells. We showed that these lateral buds resulted from mislocalization of DivIVA, a major determinant in facilitating polar elongation in mycobacterial cells. Failure of Delta ami1 mutant cells to separate also led to dysregulation of FtsZ ring bundling. Loss of Ami1 resulted in defects in septal peptidoglycan turnover with release of excess cell wall material from the septum or newly born cell poles. We noted signficant accumulation of 3-3 crosslinked muropeptides in the Delta ami1 mutant. We further demonstrated that deletion of ami1 leads to increased cell wall permeability and enhanced susceptiblity to cell wall targeting antibiotics. Collectively, these data provide novel insight on cell division in actinobacteria and highlights a new class of potential drug targets for mycobacterial diseases.

Nature Publishing Group2017

EPFL2021