mreC

168

mreC is essential under normal conditions PubMed.

Depletion of MreC leads to a progressive increase in the width and a decrease in the length of the cell.  This shape defect is consistent with a role for mreC in cell wall synthesis during elongation and has a similar phenotype to other genes with roles in elongation like ''rodA and the redundant gene pair pbpA and pbpH''.

Electron microscopy of cells depleted of MreC shows regions of the cell where a thick and irregular cell wall has accumulated PubMed.

mreC can be deleted provided that 0.5 M sucrose and 20 mM Mg(2 ) is provided in the media, mreC is therefore conditionally essential.  The phenotype of the mreC deletion in these conditions is one characterised by extreamly fat and bloated cells that tend to grow in clusters PubMed.

None/ structural protein

mreC family (single member, according to UniProt)

Intracellular N-terminus, transmembrane domain, Coiled coil domain and C-terminal beta-sheet domain.

2J5U (PDB): MreC from Listeria monocytogenes PubMed

2QF4 (PDB): MreC monomer from Streptococcus pneumoniae PubMed

2QF5 (PDB): MreC dimer from Streptococcus pneumoniae PubMed

trans-membrane protein PubMed

during logarithmic growth, MreD forms discrete patches thst move processively along peripheral tracks perpendicular to the cell axis PubMed

forms transverse bands as cells enter the stationary phase PubMed

reports on helical structures formed by MreC PubMed seem to be misinterpretation of data PubMed

A non-polar inframe deletion strain named 3481 and a xylose dependent conditional mutant named 3461 is avaliable from the Errington lab PubMed.

antisera raised in rabit is avaliable from the Errington lab.

A functional N-terminal GFP fusion has been made where the fusion protein is the only copy of the gene in the cell: strain 3417 PubMed.