Conformation and dynamic interactions of the multipartite genome in Agrobacterium tumefaciens

Bacterial species from diverse phyla contain multiple replicons, yet how these multipartite genomes are organized and segregated during the cell cycle remains poorly understood. Agrobacterium tumefaciens has a 2.8 Mb circular chromosome (Ch1), a 2.1 Mb linear chromosome (Ch2), and two large plasmids (pAt and pTi). We used this alpha proteobacterium as a model to investigate the global organization and temporal segregation of a multipartite genome. Using Chromosome Conformation Capture (Hi-C) assays, we demonstrate that both the circular and the linear chromosomes but neither of the plasmids have their left and right arms juxtaposed from their origins to their termini, generating inter-arm interactions that require the broadly conserved structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) complex. Moreover, our studies revealed two types of inter-replicon interactions: “ori-ori clustering” in which the replication origins of all four replicons interact, and “Ch1-Ch2 alignment” in which the arms of Ch1 and Ch2 interact linearly along their lengths. We show that the centromeric proteins (ParB1 for Ch1 and RepBCh2 for Ch2) are required for both types of inter-replicon contacts. Finally, using fluorescence microscopy, we validated the clustering of the origins and observed their frequent colocalization during segregation. Altogether, our findings provide a high-resolution view of the conformation of a multipartite genome. We hypothesize that inter-centromeric contacts promote the organization and maintenance of diverse replicons. Hi-C and ChIP-seq experiments were performed on wild type and mutant cells of Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 and Agrobacterium tumefaciens 15955 growing in LB, ATGN or virulence inducing medium. Hi-C, ChIP-seq and WGS experiments were performed on wild type and mutant cells of Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 growing in LB, ATGN.