A central role for PBP2 in the activation of peptidoglycan polymerization by the bacterial cell elongation machinery
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cell elongation in rod-shaped bacteria is mediated by the Rod system, a conserved morphogenic complex that spatially controls cell wall assembly by the glycan polymerase RodA and crosslinking enzyme PBP2. Using Escherichia coli as a model system, we identified a PBP2 variant that promotes Rod system function when essential accessory components of the machinery are inactivated. This PBP2 variant hyperactivates cell wall synthesis in vivo and stimulates the activity of RodA-PBP2 complexes in vitro. Cells with the activated synthase also exhibited enhanced polymerization of the actin-like MreB component of the Rod system. Our results define an activation pathway governing Rod system function in which PBP2 conformation plays a central role in stimulating both glycan polymerization by its partner RodA and the formation of cytoskeletal filaments of MreB to orient cell wall assembly. In light of these results, previously isolated mutations that activate cytokinesis suggest that an analogous pathway may also control cell wall synthesis by the division machinery.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".