MreC

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

Gene name	mreC
Synonyms
Essential	yes PubMed
Product	cell-shape determining protein
Function
MW, pI	32 kDa, 6.248
Gene length, protein length	870 bp, 290 aa
Immediate neighbours	mreD, mreB
Gene sequence (+200bp)	Protein sequence
Caution: The sequence for this gene in SubtiList contains errors
Genetic context

The gene

Basic information

• Coordinates: 2859062-2859931

Phenotypes of a mutant

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 similar to other genes with roles in elongation like rodA and the redundant gene pair pbpA and pbpH (also known as ykuA). Electron microscopy of cells depleted of MreC show regions of the cell where a thick and irregular cell wall has accumulated PubMed and PubMed. mreC can be deleted provided that 0.5 M sucrose and 20 mM Magnesium is provided in the media, mreC is therefore conditionally essentail. 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.

Database entries

• DBTBS entry: [1]

• SubtiList entry: [2]

Additional information

Function

MreC functions in cell wall synthesis by acting, together with the MreB cytoskeleton, to localise the cell wall synthetic machinery to the correct part of the cell. MreC therefore ensures that the cell wall is made in the correct way to maintain the proper shape of the cell.

MreC in other organisms

MreC is also important for controling cell shape in other organisms.

• Escherishia coli
• Caulobacter cresentus
• Rhodobacter spheroides

The protein

Basic information/ Evolution

• Catalyzed reaction/ biological activity: None/ structural protein

• Protein family:

• Paralogous protein(s): None

Extended information on the protein

• Kinetic information: None

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

• Modification:

• Cofactor(s):

• Effectors of protein activity:

• Interactions: Interacts with MreD, and a subset of the PBPs PubMed

• Localization: GFP-MreC localises to the cell membrane in a helical pattern PubMed.

Database entries

• Structure:-
  • 2J5U: MreC from Lysteria monocytogenes PubMed
  • 2QF4: MreC monomer from Streptococcus pneumoniae PubMed
  • 2QF5: MreC dimer from Streptococcus pneumoniae PubMed

• Swiss prot entry: Q01466

• KEGG entry: K03570

• E.C. number:

Expression and regulation

• Operon: mreB-mreC-mreD-minC-minD

• Sigma factor: SigH PubMed

• Regulation:

• Regulatory mechanism:

• Additional information:

Biological materials

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

• 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 3417 PubMed.

• two-hybrid system:

• Antibody: antisera raised in rabit is avaliable from the Errington lab.

Labs working on this gene/protein

Jeff Errington, Newcastle University, UK homepage

References

1. Author1, Author2 & Author3 (year) Title Journal volume: page-page. PubMed