In a new paper in PLOS GENETICS, members of Dr. Pamela Brown's lab identified ChvG-ChvI regulon as an envelope stress response system that confers protection under cell wall stress conditions in the bacterial plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The researchers used RNA-seq to show that depletion of PBP1, a bifunctional penicillin-binding protein, results in a “downregulation in transcription of flagellum-dependent motility genes and an upregulation in transcription of type VI secretion and succinoglycan biosynthesis genes, a hallmark of the ChvG-ChvI regulon.” An image showing “zones of succinoglycan production (gray) and cell spreading during depletion of PBP1a” was selected for the issue’s cover.

The image was taken by Jacob Bouchier, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Brown lab. Jacob is co-first author of the paper. 

Citation: Williams MA, Bouchier JM, Mason AK, Brown PJB (2022) Activation of ChvG-ChvI regulon by cell wall stress confers resistance to β-lactam antibiotics and initiates surface spreading in Agrobacterium tumefaciens. PLOS Genetics 18(12): e1010274. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1010274