title: Bacterial microcompartments and the modular construction of microbial metabolism.
abstract: Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are protein-bound organelles predicted to be present across 23 bacterial phyla. BMCs facilitate carbon fixation as well as the aerobic and anaerobic catabolism of a variety of organic compounds. These functions have been linked to ecological nutrient cycling, symbiosis, pathogenesis, and cardiovascular disease. Within bacterial cells, BMCs are metabolic modules that can be further dissociated into their constituent structural and functional protein domains. Viewing BMCs as genetic, structural, functional, and evolutionary modules provides a framework for understanding both BMC-mediated metabolism and for adapting their architectures for applications in synthetic biology.
authors.affiliation: DOE Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA; Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA; Physical Biosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA; Berkeley Synthetic Biology Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA. Electronic address: ckerfeld@lbl.gov.
authors.forename: Cheryl A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Kerfeld
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Onur
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Erbilgin
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000166:cytology*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D002451:Cell Compartmentation; D011487:Protein Conformation; D015202:Protein Engineering; D058615:Synthetic Biology
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins
keywords: bacterial microcompartments; bacterial organelles; carboxysomes; metabolosomes; synthetic biology