Fig. 5.

MreC employs different surfaces in order to maximize interactions with partner molecules. MreC (blue) interacts both with PBP2 (gray ribbon) and with another MreC butterfly (orange). The latter recognition region is composed mostly of hydrophobic interactions, with few exceptions (yellow sticks). Residues Phe169 and Phe182, localized at the center of the MreC–MreC interaction platform that is provided by a neighboring molecule (with apostrophes), are also involved in the formation of the hydrophobic zipper that interacts with PBP2 (purple sticks). This suggests that MreC can modify the protein partner with which it interacts through a slight adjustment of the residues available for binding