caa a22 4500 530216817 CHVBK 20190723032128.0 cr unu---uuuuu 181027e201809 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1111/mmi.13999 doi (SERVAL)BIB_D6CE85156B3D 29884993 pmid 000446994100004 isiid CozEa and CozEb play overlapping and essential roles in controlling cell division in Staphylococcus aureus [Elektronische Daten] [G.A. Stamsås, I.S. Myrbråten, D. Straume, Z. Salehian, J.W. Veening, L.S. Håvarstein, M. Kjos] Staphylococcus aureus needs to control the position and timing of cell division and cell wall synthesis to maintain its spherical shape. We identified two membrane proteins, named CozEa and CozEb, which together are important for proper cell division in S. aureus. CozEa and CozEb are homologs of the cell elongation regulator CozE &lt;sup&gt;Spn&lt;/sup&gt; of Streptococcus pneumoniae. While cozEa and cozEb were not essential individually, the ΔcozEaΔcozEb double mutant was lethal. To study the functions of cozEa and cozEb, we constructed a CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) system for S. aureus, allowing transcriptional knockdown of essential genes. CRISPRi knockdown of cozEa in the ΔcozEb strain (and vice versa) causes cell morphological defects and aberrant nucleoid staining, showing that cozEa and cozEb have overlapping functions and are important for normal cell division. We found that CozEa and CozEb interact with and possibly influence localization of the cell division protein EzrA. Furthermore, the CozE-EzrA interaction is conserved in S. pneumoniae, and cell division is mislocalized in cozE &lt;sup&gt;Spn&lt;/sup&gt; -depleted S. pneumoniae cells. Together, our results show that CozE proteins mediate control of cell division in S. aureus and S. pneumoniae, likely via interactions with key cell division proteins such as EzrA. Stamsås G.A. aut Myrbråten I.S. aut Straume D. aut Salehian Z. aut Veening J.W. aut Håvarstein L.S. aut Kjos M. aut Molecular microbiology 109/5(2018-09), 615-632 109:5<615-632 2018 109 1 article serval SERVAL 700 1- Stamsås G.A. aut SERVAL 700 1- Myrbråten I.S. aut SERVAL 700 1- Straume D. aut SERVAL 700 1- Salehian Z. aut SERVAL 700 1- Veening J.W. aut SERVAL 700 1- Håvarstein L.S. aut SERVAL 700 1- Kjos M. aut SERVAL 773 0- Molecular microbiology 109/5(2018-09), 615-632 109:5<615-632 2018 109 BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 SERVAL SERVAL SERVAL article