TY - JOUR T1 - Bacterial division FtsZ forms liquid condensates with nucleoid-associated Z-ring inhibitor SlmA JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/264192 SP - 264192 AU - Begoña Monterroso AU - Silvia Zorrilla AU - Marta Sobrinos-Sanguino AU - Miguel A. Robles-Ramos AU - Marina López-Álvarez AU - Christine D. Keating AU - Germán Rivas Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/12/264192.abstract N2 - Macromolecular condensation resulting from biologically regulated liquid-liquid phase transitions is emerging as a mechanism to organize the intracellular space in eukaryotic systems, with broad implications in cell physiology and pathology. Here we show that FtsZ, central element of the division ring in most bacteria, forms condensates when in complex with SlmA, the protein preventing septal ring assembly nearby the chromosome in E. coli. The formation of condensates is promoted by crowding and enhanced by sequence-specific binding of SlmA to DNA. These structures are dynamic and FtsZ within them remains active for GTP-triggered fiber formation. Their location is sensitive to compartmentalization and to the presence of a membrane boundary in microfluidics-based cell mimetic systems, likely affecting their reactivity. We propose that reversible condensation may play a role in the modulation of FtsZ assembly and/or location by SlmA and, hence, in the regulation of ring stability, constituting a singular example of a prokaryotic nucleoprotein complex exhibiting this kind of phase transition. ER -