FIGURE 1.

ACP Structure and Alignments. A, the structure of the decanoyl thioester of E. coli ACP modified from PDB file 2FAE using Chimera (25). The 4′-phosphopantetheine prosthetic group and acyl chain are stick models with CPK coloring. The helices are numbered. B, alignments of the ACPs of various bacteria and that of P. falciparum with E. coli ACP. Red asterisks denote the two ACPs that failed to complement growth of the conditional acpP mutant strain of E. coli (4). The bacteria were E. coli, Vibrio harveyi, Nitrosomonas europea, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, Deinococcus radiodurans, Helicobacter pylori, Aquifex aeolicus, E. faecalis, L. lactis, and B. subtilis. The apicoplast ACP of the P. falciparum malaria parasite was also found to support growth (4).