Fig. 5: PopZ material properties are directly linked to Caulobacter viability and are modulated by conserved IDR properties. | Nature Communications

Fig. 5: PopZ material properties are directly linked to Caulobacter viability and are modulated by conserved IDR properties.

From: The material properties of a bacterial-derived biomolecular condensate tune biological function in natural and synthetic systems

Fig. 5

a The sequence composition of the PopZ IDR is conserved across Caulobacterales. Histograms are calculated across 99 PopZ homologs within the Caulobacterales order and show a tight distribution for the following four parameters. (top, left) The mean fraction of acidic residues is 0.29 ± 0.004 (red). (top, right) The mean fraction of prolines is 0.23 ± 0.006 (purple). (bottom, left) Among the acidic residues within the IDR, the fraction of those found in the N-terminal half (light blue, 0.57 ± 0.011) and the C-terminal half of the IDR (dark blue, 0.43 ± 0.011). (bottom, right) Among the IDR prolines, the fraction of those found in the N-terminal half (light blue, 0.5 ± 0.015) and the C-terminal half of the IDR (dark blue, 0.5 ± 0.015). Source data underlying graphs are provided in Source Data. b Amino acid composition plays a role in PopZ mobility. FRAP, shown as mobile fractions, for PopZ with its wildtype IDR (light gray) and five mutants: Substituting either half or all of the acidic residues for asparagine (DE-N 50% in red and DE-N 100% in pink, respectively), substituting all prolines for glycines (P-G 100% in purple), and moving all acidic residues to either the N-terminal part or the C-terminal part of the linker (yellow and brown, respectively). n equals 20 granules per condition. c Growth is linked to PopZ’s material state. Growth, derived from serial dilution growth assay (Methods), as a function of FRAP mobility for ten mutants. These include from left to right: 100% DE-N (pink), Pentavalent (light green), 50% DE-N (red), IDR-156+pentavalent (green), C-acidity (orange), IDR-40 (light blue), wildtype (gray), 100% P-G (purple), N-acidity (yellow), and IDR-156 (blue). Examples of serial dilutions are shown for wildtype (gray box), 50% DE-N (red box), IDR-156 (blue box), and 100% DE-N (pink box). A polynomial fit with an R-square of 0.86 is shown in red. Three biological replicates, each with three technical replicates, were measured for each strain. a.u., arbitrary unit.

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