{"doi":"10.1101/2025.05.06.652344","title":"The small membrane protein YohP induces membrane depolarization and ppGpp accumulation in <i>Escherichia coli</i>","abstract":"Summary Small membrane proteins represent an abundant and ubiquitous class of proteins that are often up-regulated when cells encounter unfavorable conditions, yet details about their exact function are largely missing. In bacteria, these proteins consist of typically less than 50 amino acids and contain a single transmembrane domain, but lack any detectable catalytic activity. Thus, the benefit of producing these proteins during stress conditions is unknown. In the current study we used a multidisciplinary approach to determine the function of the 27 amino acid long protein YohP in E. coli . Our proteomics approach revealed that YohP production leads to an up-regulation of proteins involved in membrane protection and to a down-regulation of many enzymes involved in key metabolic processes, such as nucleotide biosynthesis. Further biochemical characterizations revealed increased cardiolipin content in the membrane, a partial dissipation of the membrane potential and reduced membrane fluidity in YohP-containing membranes. Finally, our data show that YohP production induces the stringent response and leads to elevated levels of (p)ppGpp. Overall, our data indicate that the YohP-induced proteome and membrane changes initiate a state of metabolic silencing that protects E. coli against stress and helps to conserve cellular resources.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2025,"id":557773,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9551,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1458262,"name":"Nahid Mohammadsadeghi","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1458263,"name":"Martin Milanov","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1458264,"name":"Eva Smudde","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1248775,"name":"Isabel Prucker","orcid":"0000-0002-5794-6759","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":99005,"name":"Henning J. Jessen","orcid":"0000-0002-1025-9484","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1457870,"name":"Iulia Carabadjac","orcid":"0009-0004-9507-6899","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1457871,"name":"Heiko Heerklotz","orcid":"0000-0003-4615-7022","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1375708,"name":"Pedro Franco","orcid":"0000-0002-3148-2319","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":258421,"name":"Julian D. Langer","orcid":"0000-0002-5190-577X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":257797,"name":"Hans‐Georg Koch","orcid":"0000-0001-5913-0334","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":475938,"name":"Ana Natriashvili","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":124,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:55:21.727661Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}