FIGURE 1.

Microcompartment shells are composed of homologous hexameric proteins. For all bacterial microcompartments, the canonical BMC domain (a) oligomerizes to form the traditional flat hexamer (b). These hexameric shell proteins tessellate (c) to form the nearly flat faces of bacterial microcompartments shells. (d) An idealized model of a microcompartment with hexameric BMC proteins that form the face (teal), pentameric BMV proteins that form the vertices (purple), and internal encapsulated enzymes (orange). (e) Negative stain EM of purified Pdu microcompartments (scale bar: 50 nm)