Non-essentiality of an evolutionary conserved, highly essential gene, , in and

中村 顕*; 小野瀬 晃由*; 北原 一正*; 正木 春彦*; 鳴海 一成; 星野 貴行*

no journal, , 

Gcp was first identified in as an extracellular -sialoglycoprotein endopeptidase. Genome comparison revealed that all the free-living organisms, from bacteria to humans, possess its orthologues in an evolutionary-conserved manner. Moreover, the orthologues are highly essential in bacteria, including , and yeast, indicating that Gcp has other function(s) related to essentiality of life. The orthologues of and were deleted by replacement with antibiotic-resistant genes. Although both deletion mutants showed a little slower growth in rich media, successful gene disruption indicates that the orthologues are not essential in these bacteria. In this work we showed that orthologues of and were not essential, but the mutants showed different phenotypes, osmosensitivity and sensitivity to DNA-damaging agents, respectively.