Internal sense of direction: sensing and signaling from cytoplasmic chemoreceptors

Chemoreceptors sense environmental signals and drive chemotactic responses in Bacteria and Archaea. There are two main classes of chemoreceptors: integral inner membrane and soluble cytoplasmic proteins. The latter were identified more recently than integral membrane chemoreceptors and have been studied much less thoroughly. These cytoplasmic chemoreceptors are the subject of this review. Our analysis determined that 14% of bacterial and 43% of archaeal chemoreceptors are cytoplasmic, based on currently sequenced genomes. Cytoplasmic chemoreceptors appear to share the same key structural features as integral membrane chemoreceptors, including the formations of homodimers, trimers of dimers, and 12-nm hexagonal arrays within the cell. Cytoplasmic chemoreceptors exhibit varied subcellular locations, with some localizing to the poles and others appearing both cytoplasmic and polar. Some cytoplasmic chemoreceptors adopt more exotic locations, including the formations of exclusively internal clusters or moving dynamic clusters that coalesce at points of contact with other cells. Cytoplasmic chemoreceptors presumably sense signals within the cytoplasm and bear diverse signal input domains that are mostly N terminal to the domain that defines chemoreceptors, the so-called MA domain. Similar to the case for transmembrane receptors, our analysis suggests that the most common signal input domain is the PAS (Per-Arnt-Sim) domain, but a variety of other N-terminal domains exist. It is also common, however, for cytoplasmic chemoreceptors to have C-terminal domains that may function for signal input. The most common of these is the recently identified chemoreceptor zinc binding (CZB) domain, found in 8% of all cytoplasmic chemoreceptors. The widespread nature and diverse signal input domains suggest that these chemoreceptors can monitor a variety of cytoplasmically based signals, most of which remain to be determined.