When an "essential" gene isn't so essential after all
from EdeLab & Research Explained! Hosted by Edel Perez-Lopez
A new study explores the remarkable evolution of 'Candidatus Phytoplasma pruni', a plant-pathogenic bacterium that appears to have completely lost the GroE chaperonin system, a molecular machinery traditionally considered essential for proper protein folding in bacteria. Using new high-quality genome assemblies, the authors confirmed that members of the 16SrIII phytoplasma group no longer possess functional groEL genes. Instead, only fragmented pseudogenes remain, suggesting that this system was lost long ago during genome reduction. Surprisingly, this finding indicates that GroEL is not required for virulence or intracellular survival in this lineage. The study proposes that these bacteria may compensate through alternative protein-folding mechanisms or by relying on resources provided by their eukaryotic hosts. This work challenges the long-held assumption that some cellular systems are universally indispensable in intracellular bacteria. https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.001748
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