Assembly of both the head and tail of bacteriophage Mu is blocked in Escherichia coli groEL and groES mutants

Régis Grimaud (1) , A. Toussaint (2)

1 ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles
2 Département de mathématiques Université Libre de Bruxelles

Like several other Escherichia coli bacteriophages, transposable phage Mu does not develop normally in groE hosts (M. Pato, M. Banerjee, L. Desmet, and A. Toussaint, J. Bacteriol. 169:5504-5509, 1987). We show here that lysates obtained upon induction of groE Mu lysogens contain free inactive tails and empty heads. GroEL and GroES are thus essential for the correct assembly of both Mu heads and Mu tails. Evidence is presented that groE mutations inhibit processing of the phage head protein gpH as well as the formation of a 25S complex suspected to be an early Mu head assembly intermediate.

Mots clés: article; bacterial genetics; bacterium mutant; gene mutation; nonhuman; priority journal; Bacteriophage mu; Escherichia coli; GroEL Protein; GroES Protein; Lysogeny; Morphogenesis; Mutation; Viral Proteins; Virus Assembly; Bacteria (microorganisms); Enterobacteria phage Mu; Negibacteria; unidentified bacteriophage

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Régis Grimaud, A. Toussaint. Assembly of both the head and tail of bacteriophage Mu is blocked in Escherichia coli groEL and groES mutants. Journal of Bacteriology, 1998, 180 (5), pp.1148-1153. ⟨hal-01614794⟩