FIG 1.

Schematic of the gonococcal locus encoding MetQ. (A) Structure of the NGAG_00167-NGAG_00172 locus from N. gonorrhoeae strain 1291 containing the metNIQ operon (light gray) and flanking genes (white). Arrows represent open reading frames, with the genome locus tag being shown below the arrow and the known/probable function being shown above. The locations of conserved motifs and domains in metNIQ, as described in the text, are shown by dark gray boxes. OM, outer membrane. (B) Alignment of the sequence of the putative MetQ (NGAG_00171 gene locus) of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng) with the GNA1946 sequence of Neisseria meningitidis (Nm), the MetQ sequence of Escherichia coli (Ec), and the Tp32 sequence (Tp0821 gene locus) of Treponema pallidum (Tp). The percent identity and the percent similarity of each protein to the MetQ of N. gonorrhoeae are indicated. The signal peptides of N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis are shown, as are the amino acids involved in binding to methionine in the T. pallidum structure (*, identical in N. gonorrhoeae; #, not conserved in N. gonorrhoeae).