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First published online September 22, 2005
doi: 10.1242/10.1242/jcs.02619

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mazEF: a chromosomal toxin-antitoxin module that triggers programmed cell death in bacteria

Department of Molecular Biology, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem 91120, Israel

View larger version (27K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. A schematic representation of the E. coli mazEF-mediated cell death pathway (for details, see text).

View larger version (33K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. MazF and RelE actions and structures. (A) E. coli MazF cleaves mRNAs in a sequence-dependent manner (see main text for details). (B) E. coli RelE affects mRNA cleavage, either directly or indirectly, in a ribosome- and codon-dependent manner (see main text for details). (C) The structure of the E. coli MazE-MazF complex: the two MazE molecules are shown in light and dark blue; the four MazF molecules are shown in yellow, green, pink and red. Reproduced with permission from Elsevier (Kamada et al., 2003). (D) The structure of the P. horikoshii RelB-RelE complex: RelE is shown in green and RelB is shown in red. Reproduced with permission from Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. (Takagi et al., 2005).

View larger version (15K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3 . A model for the behavior of WT and mazEF cultures during phage P1 attack. (A) In WT cells, mazEF mediates the death of the infected cells. As a consequence, the development of the phage is restricted, the phage titer is low, and the culture survives. (B) In mazEF cultures, nothing interferes with the phage infections: the infected cells lyse and spread infecting particles to the rest of the cells in the culture. Thus, the WT culture can survive phage infections whereas the mazEF culture dies. PCD, programmed cell death.