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Published Online November 13, 2008
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1165322

Reports

Submitted on September 2, 2008
Accepted on November 3, 2008

A Role for the ESCRT System in Cell Division in Archaea

Rachel Y. Samson 1, Takayuki Obita 2, Stefan M. Freund 3, Roger L. Williams 2, Stephen D. Bell 4*

1 MRC Cancer Cell Unit, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 0XZ, UK.; Present address: Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RE, UK.
2 MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 0QH, UK.
3 MRC Centre for Protein Engineering, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 0QH, UK.
4 MRC Cancer Cell Unit, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 0XZ, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Stephen D. Bell , E-mail: stephen.bell{at}path.ox.ac.uk

Archaea are prokaryotic organisms that lack endomembrane structures. Intriguingly, however, a number of hyperthermophilic members of the Kingdom Crenarchaea, including members of the Sulfolobus genus, encode homologs of the eukaryotic endosomal sorting system components Vps4 and ESCRT-III. Here, we found that Sulfolobus ESCRT-III and Vps4 homologs underwent regulation of their expression during the cell cycle. The proteins interacted, and we established the structural basis of this interaction. Furthermore, these proteins specifically localized to the mid-cell during cell division. Overexpression of a catalytically inactive mutant Vps4 in Sulfolobus resulted in the accumulation of enlarged cells, indicative of failed cell division. Thus, the archaeal ESCRT system plays a key role in cell division.


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)