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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2003, p. 4779-4786, Vol. 185, No. 16
0021-9193/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.185.16.4779-4786.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

PorA Represents the Major Cell Wall Channel of the Gram-Positive Bacterium Corynebacterium glutamicum

Noelia Costa-Riu,1 Andreas Burkovski,2 Reinhard Krämer,2 and Roland Benz1*

Lehrstuhl für Biotechnologie, Biozentrum der Universität Würzburg, D-97074 Würzburg,1 Institut für Biochemie der Universität Köln, D-50674 Cologne, Germany2

Received 20 February 2003/ Accepted 21 May 2003

The cell wall of the gram-positive bacterium Corynebacterium glutamicum contains a channel (porin) for the passage of hydrophilic solutes. The channel-forming polypeptide PorA is a 45-amino-acid acidic polypeptide with an excess of four negatively charged amino acids, which is encoded by the 138-bp gene porA. porA was deleted from the chromosome of C.glutamicum wild-type strain ATCC 13032 to obtain mutant ATCC 13032{Delta}porA. Southern blot analysis demonstrated that porA was deleted. Lipid bilayer experiments revealed that PorA was not present in the cell wall of the mutant strain. Searches within the known chromosome of C. glutamicum by using National Center for Biotechnology Information BLAST and reverse transcription-PCR showed that no other PorA-like protein is encoded on the chromosome or is expressed in the deletion strain. The porA deletion strain exhibited slower growth and longer growth times than the C. glutamicum wild-type strain. Experiments with different antibiotics revealed that the susceptibility of the mutant strain was much lower than that of the wild-type C. glutamicum strain. The results presented here suggest that PorA represents a major hydrophilic pathway through the cell wall and that C. glutamicum contains cell wall channels which are not related to PorA.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Lehrstuhl für Biotechnologie, Biozentrum der Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany. Phone: 49-(0)931-888-4501. Fax: 49-(0)931-888-4509. E-mail: roland.benz{at}mail.uni-wuerzburg.de.

Journal of Bacteriology, August 2003, p. 4779-4786, Vol. 185, No. 16
0021-9193/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.185.16.4779-4786.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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  • Gebhardt, H., Meniche, X., Tropis, M., Kramer, R., Daffe, M., Morbach, S. (2007). The key role of the mycolic acid content in the functionality of the cell wall permeability barrier in Corynebacterineae. Microbiology 153: 1424-1434 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Hunten, P., Schiffler, B., Lottspeich, F., Benz, R. (2005). PorH, a new channel-forming protein present in the cell wall of Corynebacterium efficiens and Corynebacterium callunae. Microbiology 151: 2429-2438 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
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