Investigating negative Gaussian curvature as an antimicrobial vulnerability

During bacterial division, the mid-cell undergoes constriction, causing inner and outer membrane closure. Interestingly, the constriction site always has negative Gaussian curvature and is the only region in cells that has this property. We investigate the role of membrane curvature in the targeting of antimicrobials. We observe that several innate immunity proteins localize to the mid-cells of E. coli, suggesting that curvature may be an important factor for targeting by antimicrobial proteins. We used a machine learning framework and a model that incorporates electrostatic forces, membrane tension and fluid mechanics in order to predict where proteins should localize based on curvature. Our results suggest that negative Gaussian curvature targeting by innate immunity antimicrobials could represent a vulnerability within the bacterial cell cycle.