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Bacterial partitioning proteins affect the subcellular location of broad-host-range plasmid RK2

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Gdansk, Kladki 24, 80-822 Gdansk, Poland

Correspondence
Igor Konieczny
igor{at}biotech.univ.gda.pl

It has been demonstrated that plasmids are not randomly distributed but are located symmetrically in mid-cell, or , positions in bacterial cells. In this work we compared the localization of broad-host-range plasmid RK2 mini-replicons, which lack an active partitioning system, in Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas putida cells. In E. coli the location of the plasmid mini-replicon cluster was at the cell poles. In contrast, in Pseudomonas cells, as a result of the interaction of chromosomally encoded ParB protein with RK2 centromere-like sequences, these mini-derivatives were localized in the proximity of mid-cell, or , positions. The expression of the Pseudomonas parAB genes in E. coli resulted in a positional change in the RK2 mini-derivative to the mid-cell or , positions. Moreover, in a P. putida parAB mutant, both RK2 mini-derivatives and the entire RK2 plasmid exhibited disturbances of subcellular localization. These observations raise the possibility that in certain bacteria chromosomally encoded partitioning machinery could affect subcellular plasmid positioning.