The patterned assembly and stepwise Vps4-mediated disassembly of composite ESCRT-III polymers drives archaeal cell division

F Hurtig and TCQ Burgers and A Cezanne and XY Jiang and FN Mol and J Traparic and AA Pulschen and T Nierhaus and G Tarrason-Risa and L Harker-Kirschneck and J Lowe and A Saric and R Vlijm and B Baum, SCIENCE ADVANCES, 9, eade5224 (2023).

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ade5224

ESCRT-III family proteins form composite polymers that deform and cut membrane tubes in the context of a wide range of cell biological processes across the tree of life. In reconstituted systems, sequential changes in the composition of ESCRT-III polymers induced by the AAA- adenosine triphosphatase Vps4 have been shown to remodel membranes. However, it is not known how composite ESCRT-III polymers are organized and remodeled in space and time in a cellular context. Taking advantage of the relative simplicity of the ESCRT-III-dependent division system in Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, one of the closest experimentally tractable prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes, we use super-resolution microscopy, electron microscopy, and computational modeling to show how CdvB/CdvB1/CdvB2 proteins form a precisely patterned composite ESCRT-III division ring, which under-goes stepwise Vps4-dependent disassembly and contracts to cut cells into two. These observations lead us to suggest sequential changes in a patterned composite polymer as a general mechanism of ESCRT-III-depen-dent membrane remodeling.

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