Bacterial microcompartment

Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are organelles consisting of a protein shell that encloses enzymes and other proteins. BMCs are typically about 40–200 nanometers in diameter and are entirely made of proteins. The shell functions like a membrane, as it is selectively permeable. Other protein-based compartments found in bacteria and archaea include encapsulin nanocompartments and gas vesicles. Eukaryotes have also been observed to have proteinaceous organelles, such as the mysterious vault complex.

The first BMCs were observed in the 1950s in electron micrographs of cyanobacteria, and were later named carboxysomes after their role in carbon fixation was established. Until the 1990s, carboxysomes were thought to be an oddity confined to certain autotrophic bacteria. But then genes coding for proteins homologous to those of the carboxysome shell were identified in the pdu (propanediol utilization) and eut (ethanolamine utilization) operons. Subsequently, transmission electron micrographs of Salmonella cells grown on propanediol or ethanolamine showed the presence of polyhedral bodies similar to carboxysomes. The term metabolosome is used to refer to such catabolic BMCs (in contrast to the autotrophic carboxysome).

Although the carboxysome, propanediol utilizing (PDU), and ethanolamine utilizing (EUT) BMCs encapsulate different enzymes and therefore have different functions, the genes encoding for the shell proteins are very similar. Most of the genes (coding for the shell proteins and the encapsulated enzymes) from experimentally characterized BMCs are located near one another in distinct genetic loci or operons. There are currently over 20,000 bacterial genomes sequenced, and bioinformatics methods can be used to find all BMC shell genes and to look at what other genes are in the vicinity, producing a list of potential BMCs. Recently a comprehensive survey identified 23 different loci encoding up to 10 functionally distinct BMCs across 23 bacterial phyla.

The BMC shell appears icosahedral or quasi-icosahedral, and is formed by (pseudo)hexameric and pentameric protein subunits.

The major constituents of the BMC shell are proteins containing Pfam00936 domain(s). These proteins form oligomers that are hexagonal in shape and are thought to form the facets of the shell.

The BMC-H proteins, which contain a single copy of the Pfam00936 domain, are the most abundant component of the facets of the shell. The crystal structures of a number of these proteins have been determined, showing that they assemble into cyclical hexamers, typically with a small pore in the center. This opening is proposed to be involved in the selective transport of the small metabolites across the shell.

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