Advances in the World of Bacterial Microcompartments

Abstract

Bacterial microcompartments (MCPs) are extremely large (100-400 nm) and diverse proteinaceous organelles that compartmentalize multistep metabolic pathways, increasing their efficiency and sequestering toxic and/or volatile intermediates. This review highlights recent studies that have expanded our understanding of the diversity, structure, function, and potential biotechnological uses of MCPs. Several new types of MCPs have been identified and characterized revealing new functions and potential new associations with human disease. Recent structural studies of MCP proteins and recombinant MCP shells have provided new insights into MCP assembly and mechanisms and raised new questions about MCP structure. We also discuss recent work on biotechnology applications that use MCP principles to develop nanobioreactors, nanocontainers, and molecular scaffolds.

Keywords: carboxysome; enzyme scaffold; glycyl radical; microcompartment; nanocompartment.