Mind your B's and R's: bacterial chemotaxis, signal transduction and protein recognition

The crystal structures of two key regulators of the bacterial chemotaxis pathway (CheR and CheB) have been determined. These studies add further detail to the growing picture of signal transduction and attenuation in the bacterial chemotaxis pathway. The recently determined structure of the methyltransferase CheR bound to a peptide of its target receptor, provides a structural model for intermolecular receptor modification during signaling.