Extended Data Fig. 1. ccrZ deletion phenotype is conserved in S. aureus .

a, Left: CcrZ conservation in firmicutes. Percentages indicate the highest percent identity, for each class, obtained using PSI-BLAST with NIH sequences. Right: genes co-occurrence in several genomes (data obtained from string-db.org; see Methods). Horizontal section indicate complexity in neighborhood score assignment; white triangles indicate missing annotation. b, Growth curves at 37°C and 30°C of ccrZ depletion mutants using P_lac (left) or P_zn (right). c, Western blots for different pneumococcal strains. C: native CcrZ size; X: unknown protein recognized by α-ccrZ IgG. d, Microscopy of DAPI-stained S. aureus upon ccrZ silencing shows anucleate cells, while B. subtilis ΔccrZ mutant did not present nucleoid defects. Top and bottom scale bars, 3 μm ; middle scale bar, 5 μm. ΔccrZ Sa cells were longer (or less well separated) and thinner (top right; wild type: n=483 cells, ΔccrZBs n=399 cells; data are shown as box (25^th to 75^th percentile) and whiskers (1.5x interquartile range) plots with individual data points overlaid as dot plots) ***: P value = 6 x 10^-29 and P value = 2 x 10^-23 when comparing widths and lengths respectively, values derived from two-sided Wilcoxon rank sum test. Bottom-left: chromosome defects upon ccrZ_Sa silencing can be rescued by expression of ccrZ_Bs (ccrZ_Sa^sgRNA- P_ccrZSa-ccrZ_Bs + IPTG). Associated growth curves (bottom-right) also confirmed the complementation of ccrZ_Sa by ccrZ_Bs. e, Immunostaining of the polysaccharide capsule of S. pneumoniae wild type and upon ccrZ depletion. Scale bar, 3 μ m.