Summary
Important physicochemical properties of cell membranes such as fluidity sensitively depend on fluctuating environmental factors including temperature, pH or diet. To counteract these disturbances, living cells universally adapt their lipid composition in return. In contrast to eukaryotic cells, bacteria tolerate surprisingly drastic changes in their lipid composition while retaining viability, thus making them a more tractable model to study this process. Using the model organisms Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis, which regulate their membrane fluidity with different fatty acid types, we show here that inadequate membrane fluidity interferes with essential cellular processes such as morphogenesis and maintenance of membrane potential, and triggers large-scale lipid phase separation that drives protein segregation into the fluid phase. These findings illustrate why lipid homeostasis is such a critical cellular process. Finally, our results provide direct in vivo support for current in vitro and in silico models regarding lipid phase separation and associated protein segregation.