Function of Bacterial Spore Coat Polypeptides in Structure, Resistance andGermination

摘要

The spore coat of Bacillus subtilis is comprised of two morphological layers,each consisting of several polypeptides. One which was cloned and sequenced is processed from a precursor. A deletion of this gene resulted in some alteration in the structure of the inner coat and of the capacity to respond to a specific spore germinant. When this protein was over produced from a multicopy plasmid, the spores had a thickened inner coat and germinated poorly. The absence of another spore coat protein had extensive pleiotropic effects on the assembly of the outer sporecoat. As a result, the spores were lysozyme-sensitive but they germinated at rates similar to the wild type.