L forms
Bacteria were the first organisms to appear on planet earth. Almost all modern bacteria have a tough protective shell called a cell wall. The structure of the wall and the mechanisms used by cells to manufacture it are conserved, suggesting that the wall was invented right at the beginning of bacterial evolution, and, therefore, when the first true cells emerged.
L-forms are wall-deficient variants of common bacteria that have been studied for many decades since their discovery in 1935. L-forms were classically identified as antibiotic resistant variants in association with a wide range of infectious diseases. Despite their potential importance for understanding antibiotic resistance and pathogenesis, surprisingly nothing was known about the molecular biology of L-forms for a long time.
We recently uncovered the genetic basis for the L-form transition in the rod-shaped bacterium Bacillus subtilis, and thus how to generate L-forms reliably and reproducibly. Our new findings in L-form research not only contributes for clinical aspects including persistent bacterial infection, but also understanding a mode of cell proliferation in primitive cells, before the invention of the cell wall.
- Mercier R*, Kawai Y* and Errington J. (2013) Excess Membrane Synthesis Drives a Primitive Mode of Cell Proliferation. Cell; 152(5):997-1007. (*co-authors).
- Mercier R, Domínguez-Cuevas P, Errington J. (2012) Crucial role for membrane fluidity in proliferation of primitive cells. Cell Reports; 1(5):417-23.
- Domínguez-Cuevas P, Mercier R, Leaver M, Kawai Y, Errington J. (2012) The rod to L-form transition of Bacillus subtilis is limited by a requirement for the protoplast to escape from the cell wall sacculus. Mol Microbiol; 83(1):52-66.
- Leaver M, Domínguez-Cuevas P, Coxhead JM, Daniel RA, Errington J. (2009) Life without a wall or division machine in Bacillus subtilis. Nature; 457(7231):849-53.
