Sequence analyses of a lipoprotein conserved with bacterial actins responsible for swimming motility of wall-less helical Spiroplasma.

Abstract

Spiroplasma is a genus of pathogenic or commensal cell-wall-deficient helical bacterium. Spiroplasma -specific protein fibril and five classes of bacterial actins, MreB1-5, are involved in a helical ribbon structure responsible for helical-cell morphology and swimming motility. A gene for a hypothetical protein-SPE_1229, 7th protein-has been found in the locus coding mreB s. In this study, we characterized the 7th protein using in silico methods and found that it could be a lipoprotein whose gene is encoded downstream of mreB3 and conserved in a clade of Spiroplasma .