Influence of proteins Bsp and FemH on cell shape and peptidoglycan composition in group B streptococcus.

Dieter J Reinscheid, Claudia Stösser, Kerstin Ehlert, Ralph W Jack, Kerstin Möller, Bernhard J Eikmanns, Gursharan S Chhatwal

Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, University of Ulm, Germany. dieter.reinscheid@biologie.uni-ulm.de

Microbiology (Reading, England) 2002 Oct

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Group B streptococcus (GBS) is surrounded by a capsule. However, little is known about peptidoglycan metabolism in these bacteria. In the present study, a 65 kDa protein was isolated from the culture supernatant of GBS and N-terminally sequenced, permitting isolation of the corresponding gene, termed bsp. The bsp gene was located close to another gene, designated femH, and reverse transcription-PCR revealed a bicistronic transcriptional organization for both genes. The Bsp protein was detected in the culture supernatant from 31 tested clinical isolates of GBS, suggesting a wide distribution of Bsp in these bacteria. Overexpression of bsp resulted in lens-shaped GBS cells, indicating a role for bsp in controlling cell morphology. Insertional disruption of femH resulted in a reduction of the L-alanine content of the peptidoglycan, suggesting that femH is involved in the incorporation of L-alanine residues in the interpeptide chain of the peptidoglycan of GBS.

Citation

Dieter J Reinscheid, Claudia Stösser, Kerstin Ehlert, Ralph W Jack, Kerstin Möller, Bernhard J Eikmanns, Gursharan S Chhatwal. Influence of proteins Bsp and FemH on cell shape and peptidoglycan composition in group B streptococcus. Microbiology (Reading, England). 2002 Oct;148(Pt 10):3245-54