Elucidating the Role of Novel Cell Envelope Integrity Factors of Escherichia coli

细胞被膜包围并保护所有细菌，包括致病菌和有益菌。尽管细菌细胞被膜对医疗保健的重要性，但关于细胞被膜生物学仍有许多未知之处。例如，在模式生物大肠杆菌（Escherichia coli）中，研究和注释最好的细菌，1，200种预测的整合膜蛋白中有近三分之一仍然没有得到充分的表征或注释。最近，系统的遗传筛选被用来研究几乎所有已知的和假定的E.杆菌因此，许多新的功能连接被发现。我建议专注于两个新的模块的未注释的包膜基因，功能上连接到外膜（OM）和脂多糖（LPS）的生物过程。在第一个模块中，三个未注释的OM蛋白（OMPs）和一个未表征的预测周质基因显示功能的相互作用与编码OM生物发生和组装的基因。在第二个模块中，6个未注释的内膜（IM）基因与LPS转运（LPT）机制的组件相互作用。

The cell envelope surrounds and protects all bacteria, including pathogenic and beneficial species. Despite the importance of bacterial cell envelope to healthcare, much still remains unknown about the cell envelope biology. For example, in the model organism Escherichia coli, the best studied and annotated bacterium, nearly one-third of the 1,200 predicted integral membrane proteins remain poorly characterized or unannotated. Recently, systematic genetic screens were used to study functional relationships among virtually all known and putative cell envelope genes of E. coli. As a result, many novel functional connections were uncovered. I propose to focus specifically on the two novel modules of unannotated envelope genes that are functionally linked to outer membrane (OM) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) bioprocesses. In the first module, three unannotated OM proteins (OMPs) and an uncharacterized predicted periplasmic gene displayed functional interaction with genes encoding OM biogenesis and assembly. In the second module, six unannotated inner membrane (IM) genes interacted with the components of the LPS transport (LPT) machinery.