Structure of the Bacillus subtilis quorum-sensing peptide pheromone ComX.
The ComX pheromone is an extracellular signaling molecule that stimulates natural competence in response to crowding in the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis. The pheromone is formed by isoprenylation of an inactive precursor peptide, but its precise structure is not known. Here we report the structure of the ComX pheromone, showing that addition of a geranyl group to a tryptophan residue results in the formation of an unusual ring structure.
Okada
Masahiro
M
Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan.
Sato
Isao
I
Cho
Soo Jeong
SJ
Iwata
Hidehisa
H
Nishio
Toshihiko
T
Dubnau
David
D
Sakagami
Youji
Y
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000378:metabolism*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010675:Pheromones / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D011487:Protein Conformation; D014364:Tryptophan / Q000737:chemistry
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; C087040:ComX protein, Bacillus subtilis; D010675:Pheromones; D014364:Tryptophan