MreD

• Description: MreD is a cell shape determining protein and is associated with the MreB cytoskeleton in B. subtilis and other rod shaped bacteria.
  
  

Gene name	mreD
Synonyms	rodB
Essential	yes
Product	cell-shape determining protein
Function	cell-shape determation
MW, pI	19 kDa, 7.906
Gene length, protein length	516 bp, 172 aa
Immediate neighbours	minC, mreC
Get the DNA and protein sequences (Barbe et al., 2009)
Genetic context This image was kindly provided by SubtiList

The gene

Basic information

• Locus tag: BSU28010

Phenotypes of a mutant

the phenotype of mreD is similar to that of mreC. mreD is essential under normal conditions PubMed. Depletion of MreD leads to a progressive increase in the width and a decrease in the length of the cell and cells become lytic. In the depletion strain, lysis can be prevented and cell growth, but not cell shape, can be recovered by inculaion of Magnesium in the media. This shape defect is consistent with a role for mreD in cell wall synthesis during elongation and has a similar phenotype to other genes with roles in elongation.

Database entries

• DBTBS entry: [1]

• SubtiList entry: [2]

Additional information

MreD functions in cell wall synthesis by, together with the MreB cytoskeleton, localizing the cell wall synthetic machinery to the correct part of the cell. As a transmembrane protein MreD is thought to provide a patch on the membrane that MreB inteacts with. MreC therefore ensures that the cell wall is made in the correct way to maintain the proper shape of the cell.

The protein

Basic information/ Evolution

• Catalyzed reaction/ biological activity: None/ structural

• Protein family: mreD family (according to Swiss-Prot) COG2891

• Paralogous protein(s): None

Extended information on the protein

• Kinetic information:

• Domains:

• Modification:

• Cofactor(s):

• Effectors of protein activity:

• Interactions:

• Localization:

Database entries

• Structure: None

• UniProt: Q01467

• KEGG entry: [3]

• E.C. number:

Expression and regulation

• Operon: mreB-mreC-mreD-minC-minD PubMed

• Sigma factor: SigH PubMed}}

• Regulation:

• Regulatory mechanism:

• Additional information:

Biological materials

• Mutant: A conditional mutant with an inframe deletion of mreD complemented by a xylose inducible copy at an ectopic locus (strain named 4352) is avaliable from the Errington Group.

• Expression vector:

• lacZ fusion:

• GFP fusion: A functional N-terminal GFP fusion has been made where the fusion protein is the only copy of the gene in the cell: strain 3416 PubMed.

• two-hybrid system:

• Antibody:

Labs working on this gene/protein

Peter Graumann, Freiburg University, Germany homepage