FIG 3 .

Morphological defects are visible in sporulating VM mutant cells. (A) Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses of sporulating cultures at 23 h of wild-type (WT) 630Δerm, Δ0A, and VM and CD25622-VM TargeTron mutants and their complements (VM::ermB/C and 25622::ermB/C). Bars, 500 nm. Blue arrowheads mark coat layers that encase the forespore, while the pink arrowhead indicates detached coat layers termed “bearding.” The green arrowheads highlight abnormal forespore shape, where the forespore appears to be pinched at the mother cell-proximal side, while the yellow arrowhead denotes areas of abnormal cortex thickness. (B) Percentage of cells with the observed phenotype based on analyses of a minimum of 50 TEM images.