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Updated: May 3, 2026

Visualization of Germinosomes and the Inner Membrane in Bacillus subtilis Spores
Published on: April 15, 2019
Defining the region of Bacillus subtilis SpoIIIJ that is essential for its sporulation-specific function
Yanping Geng1, Jeanine de Keyzer, Dirk-Jan Scheffers
1Molecular Microbiology, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute and Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Proteins of the YidC/OxaI/Alb3 family play a crucial role in the insertion, folding, and/or assembly of membrane proteins in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Bacillus subtilis has two YidC-like proteins, denoted SpoIIIJ and YqjG. SpoIIIJ and YqjG are largely exchangeable in function, but SpoIIIJ has a unique role in sporulation, while YqjG stimulates competence development. To obtain more insight into the regions important for the sporulation specificity of SpoIIIJ, a series of SpoIIIJ/YqjG chimeras was constructed. These chimeras were tested for functionality during vegetative growth and for their ability to complement the sporulation defect of a spoIIIJ deletion strain. The data suggest an important role for the domain comprising transmembrane segment 2 (TMS2) and its flanking loops in sporulation specificity, with lesser contributions to specificity by TMS1 and TMS3.
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