The Metabolic Enzyme ManA Reveals a Link between Cell Wall Integrity and Chromosome Morphology

Synchronizing cell growth, division and DNA replication is an essential property of all living cells. Accurate coordination of these cellular events is especially crucial for bacteria, which can grow rapidly and undergo multifork replication. Here we show that the metabolic protein ManA, which is a component of mannose phosphotransferase system, participates in cell wall construction of the rod shaped bacterium Bacillus subtilis. When growing rapidly, cells lacking ManA exhibit aberrant cell wall architecture, polyploidy and abnormal chromosome morphologies. We demonstrate that these cellular defects are derived from the role played by ManA in cell wall formation. Furthermore, we show that ManA is required for maintaining the proper carbohydrate composition of the cell wall, particularly of teichoic acid constituents. This perturbed cell wall synthesis causes asynchrony between cell wall elongation, division and nucleoid segregation.