NamZ1 and NamZ2 from the Oral Pathogen Tannerella forsythia Are Peptidoglycan Processing Exo-β-N-Acetylmuramidases with Distinct Substrate Specificities.

ABSTRACT: The Gram-negative periodontal pathogen Tannerella forsythia is inherently auxotrophic for N-acetylmuramic acid (MurNAc), which is an essential carbohydrate constituent of the peptidoglycan (PGN) of the bacterial cell wall. Thus, to build up its cell wall, T. forsythia strictly depends on the salvage of exogenous MurNAc or sources of MurNAc, such as polymeric or fragmentary PGN, derived from cohabiting bacteria within the oral microbiome. In our effort to elucidate how T. forsythia satisfies its demand for MurNAc, we recognized that the organism possesses three putative orthologs of the exo-β-N-acetylmuramidase BsNamZ from Bacillus subtilis, which cleaves nonreducing end, terminal MurNAc entities from the artificial substrate pNP-MurNAc and the naturally-occurrin

SUBMITTER: Borisova M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8923202 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature