The life cycle of an archaeon with multiple membranes
- 1MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Abstract
Many prokaryotes are diderms. They divide using an FtsZ division ring to simultaneously constrict physically coupled inner and outer membranes to form daughter cells with two membranes. Currently, only one archaeon, Ignicoccus hospitalis, is known to have an outer and inner membrane. Here, in exploring Ignicoccus cell division, we show by expansion microscopy that I. hospitalis uses a contractile CdvA-ESCRT-III ring to repeatedly constrict and cut its inner membrane in a way that yields clusters containing multiple cytoplasms within a shared periplasm. The outer bounding membrane then bursts to release the progeny cells, which regain their parental cell architecture via a membrane duplication process. Furthermore, this life cycle appears conserved across Ignicoccus strains, even though the precise timing of events changes. Taken together, these data show that Ignicoccus cells propagate by undergoing dynamic changes in their architecture as they transit between single and multi-cellular states.
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BibTeX
@misc{mayer2026life,
title = {{The life cycle of an archaeon with multiple membranes}},
author = {F. Mayer and A. von Kugelgen and R. Stockl and V. Seitz and J. Parham and Z. Wang and R. Reichelt and T. A. M. Bharat and H. Huber and A. Spang and D. Grohmann and B. Baum},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.08.750209},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.750209v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The life cycle of an archaeon with multiple membranes
AU - F. Mayer
AU - A. von Kugelgen
AU - R. Stockl
AU - V. Seitz
AU - J. Parham
AU - Z. Wang
AU - R. Reichelt
AU - T. A. M. Bharat
AU - H. Huber
AU - A. Spang
AU - D. Grohmann
AU - B. Baum
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.08.750209
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.750209v1
AB - Many prokaryotes are diderms. They divide using an FtsZ division ring to simultaneously constrict physically coupled inner and outer membranes to form daughter cells with two membranes. Currently, only one archaeon, Ignicoccus hospitalis, is known to have an outer and inner membrane. Here, in exploring Ignicoccus cell division, we show by expansion microscopy that I. hospitalis uses a contractile CdvA-ESCRT-III ring to repeatedly constrict and cut its inner membrane in a way that yields clusters containing multiple cytoplasms within a shared periplasm. The outer bounding membrane then bursts to release the progeny cells, which regain their parental cell architecture via a membrane duplication process. Furthermore, this life cycle appears conserved across Ignicoccus strains, even though the precise timing of events changes. Taken together, these data show that Ignicoccus cells propagate by undergoing dynamic changes in their architecture as they transit between single and multi-cellular states.
ER -