Both mutants could swarm on 1.5% agar: swarms were 32% and 89% the level of the control for G21V and L22V, respectively as shown in Figure 6B. Both strains swarmed poorly on 0.3% agar, 3% and 37% that of the control for G21V and

L22V, respectively, which suggests that both mutations exert stronger effects on S-motility than on A-motility. Figure 6 Mutants with activating mutations display defects in one or both motility systems. MglA alleles which were made to resemble activating mutations in Ras displayed decreased or #selleck screening library randurls[1|1|,|CHEM1|]# absent motility in a complementing strain. Mutations shown in this figure include MxH2361 (G21V), MxH2359 (L22V), MxH2357 (P80A), MxH2320 (Q82A) and MxH2319 (Q82R). See Figure 2 legend. Cells containing MglAG21V could LY333531 molecular weight neither move individually on a 1.5% agarose surface nor in 0.5% MC (videomicroscopy, Table 1), although stable MglA was produced and some flares were observed at the colony edge (third panel, Figure 6C). In contrast, videomicroscopy showed that the L22V mutant glided well on agarose (90% of the control) and showed

speeds in methylcellulose of 71% of the control (Table 1). Reversals occurred less frequently in the L22V mutant (1 in 20.6 min, compared to 1 in 14.8 min for the control) in both agarose and in MC (1 in 12.0 min, compared with 1 in 10.8 min for control). Although these results would seem to contradict the swarming assay, we observed a density-dependent effect on motility in the microscopic assays. When cells were in contact, both G21V and L22V speeds increased and more closely correlated with their success in swarming assays. The proline in PM3, P80, is conserved in proteins

closely related to MglA as well as distant relatives LepA, Obg, Era and YihA. Many eukaryotic GTPases, such as those in the Rho, Ras and Rab families, contain an alanine in this position. The analogous residue A59 in Ha-Ras is involved in retaining GDP by preventing dissociation of the ligand by conformational change in Ha-Ras and mutation to threonine is considered an activating mutation [13]. To explore the possibility that substitution of the bulky either proline in MglA might improve its function, P80 was changed to alanine. Although the P80A mutant improves the PM3 motif match with most eukaryotic, as well as many prokaryotic GTPases such as FtsY, YchF, and TrmE, this mutation completely abolished MglA function in vivo despite the fact that stable MglA protein was made (Figure 6D). The P80A mutant was mot- and dev-. MglAQ82 mutants were expected to reduce the rate of GTP hydrolysis based on the effect of the analogous change in Ras (Q61). Initially Q82R was made to mimic known Ras mutants but this mutant allele failed to produce detectable MglA (Figure 6D) and the strain was nonmotile. Subsequently, Q82A was made to offset concerns that the charged arginine in this position inhibited folding of MglA.