Figure 1.

Structure and organization of carboxysomes and related bacterial microcompartments. (A) Carboxysomes visualized by thin-section EM in a dividing cell of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 cell (scale bar, 200 nm). (B) Enlargement of a single carboxysome (scale bar, 50 nm). Panels A and B (courtesy of Wim Vermaas) adapted from Ref. 3. (C) Organization of the microcompartment genes for the carboxysome in Syn. 6803 and in the chemoautotroph H. neapolitanus, and for the Pdu microcompartment in Salmonella typhimurium LT2. Gene families highlighted in the text are colored blue and yellow. (D) Oligomeric structures of proteins from the BMC family (CcmK or CsoS1) and the CcmL/EutN family, and a model for their higher level assembly into a carboxysome, according to Ref. 4. (Figure adapted from Ref. 5).