MreB polymers and curvature localization are enhanced by RodZ and predict E. coli's cylindrical uniformity. Author Benjamin Bratton, Joshua Shaevitz, Zemer Gitai, Randy Morgenstein Publication Year 2018 Type Journal Article Abstract The actin-like protein MreB has been proposed to coordinate the synthesis of the cell wall to determine cell shape in bacteria. MreB is preferentially localized to areas of the cell with specific curved geometries, avoiding the cell poles. It remains unclear whether MreB's curvature preference is regulated by additional factors, and which specific features of MreB promote specific features of rod shape growth. Here, we show that the transmembrane protein RodZ modulates MreB curvature preference and polymer number in E. coli, properties which are regulated independently. An unbiased machine learning analysis shows that MreB polymer number, the total length of MreB polymers, and MreB curvature preference are key correlates of cylindrical uniformity, the variability in radius within a single cell. Changes in the values of these parameters are highly predictive of the resulting changes in cell shape (r = 0.93). Our data thus suggest RodZ promotes the assembly of geometrically-localized MreB polymers that lead to the growth of uniform cylinders. Keywords Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial, Escherichia coli, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Recombinant Fusion Proteins, Green Fluorescent Proteins, Escherichia coli Proteins, Cell Membrane, Cytoskeletal Proteins, Regression Analysis, Cell Wall, Protein Multimerization, Machine Learning, Amdinocillin Journal Nat Commun Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 2797 Date Published 2018 Jul 18 ISSN Number 2041-1723 DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-05186-5 Alternate Journal Nat Commun PMCID PMC6052060 PMID 30022070 PubMedPubMed CentralGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML