Characterization of Chemotaxis Proteins FrzA and FrzB in Myxococcus xanthus

Abstract

Myxococcus xanthus is a social bacterium. It has a complex life cycle, and motility plays a vital role in predation and fruiting body formation. It shows two types of motilities, Social and Adventurous. It is known that the modulation of the cellular reversal frequency in this bacterium is caused due to the components of the frz pathway, which affects both the Adventurous motility and the Social motility. Recent studies have shown that frz pathway proteins are homologues of the che pathway proteins found in E. coli. The proteins FrzA and FrzB are homologues of a coupling protein called CheW that plays a role in coupling the signal received by the chemoreceptor (MCP) with the autophosphorylation activity of CheA (Histidine kinase) found in E. coli. In this study, we sought to purify the FrzB protein to biochemically and biophysically characterize it. Further goals of this study are to clone the frzA gene and to generate 3D models of frz pathway proteins, FrzE, FrzCD and FrzA, to study their interfaces.