Assembly of both the head and tail of bacteriophage Mu is blocked in Escherichia coli groEL and groES mutants.
Like several other Escherichia coli bacteriophages, transposable phage Mu does not develop normally in groE hosts (M. Pato, M. Banerjee, L. Desmet, and A. Toussaint, J. Bacteriol. 169:5504-5509, 1987). We show here that lysates obtained upon induction of groE Mu lysogens contain free inactive tails and empty heads. GroEL and GroES are thus essential for the correct assembly of both Mu heads and Mu tails. Evidence is presented that groE mutations inhibit processing of the phage head protein gpH as well as the formation of a 25S complex suspected to be an early Mu head assembly intermediate.
Grimaud
R
R
Unité Transposition Bactérienne, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Rhode St Genèse, Belgium. regis@helix.nih.gov
Toussaint
A
A
D010583:Bacteriophage mu / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D018835:Chaperonin 10 / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D018834:Chaperonin 60 / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000821:virology*; D008242:Lysogeny; D009024:Morphogenesis; D009154:Mutation; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D019065:Virus Assembly
D018835:Chaperonin 10; D018834:Chaperonin 60; D014764:Viral Proteins