Guanosine pentaphosphate and guanosine tetraphosphate accumulation and induction of Myxococcus xanthus fruiting body development

Development of multicellular fruiting bodies of Myxococcus xanthus can be induced by limitation of any of a number of different classes of amino acids. Investigated were amino acids that wild-type strains of M. xanthus are unable to synthesize (isoleucine, leucine, and valine), can synthesize at a low rate (phenylalanine), or can normally synthesize at an adequate rate (tryptophan and serine). In general, gradual rather than abrupt starvation for an essential amino acid was required for the induction of fruiting. Perhaps gradual starvation in general minimizes antagonism between amino acids present in the medium, as was documented for valine starvation. The previously reported induction of fruiting by a high concentration of threonine was shown to be specifically reversed by lysine. Threonine addition may starve cells for lysine by feedback inhibition of aspartokinase activity. Starvation for carbon-energy sources or inorganic phosphate also induced fruiting. As in other bacteria, amino acid starvation of M. xanthus leads to increases in cellular guanosine polyphosphate, usually consisting of large increases in the amount of guanosine pentaphosphate with smaller increases in the level of guanosine tetraphosphate. Guanosine polyphosphate accumulation is thus shown to be correlated with nutritional conditions that induce fruiting, and therefore may serve as an intracellular signal to trigger cells to end vegetative growth and initiate fruiting body development.