Self-Assembly Stability and Variability of Bacterial Microcompartment Shell Proteins in Response to the Environmental Change.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are proteinaceous self-assembling organelles that are widespread among the prokaryotic kingdom. By segmenting key metabolic enzymes and pathways using a polyhedral shell, BMCs play essential roles in carbon assimilation, pathogenesis, and microbial ecology. The BMC shell is composed of multiple protein homologs that self-assemble to form the defined architecture. There is tremendous interest in engineering BMCs to develop new nanobioreactors and molecular scaffolds. Here, we report the quantitative characterization of the formation and self-assembly dynamics of BMC shell proteins under varying pH and salt conditions using high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM). We show that 400-mM salt concentration is prone to result in larger single-layered shell p

SUBMITTER: Faulkner M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6372710 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature