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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Apr 18.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Opin Microbiol. 2021 May 28;62:51–60. doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2021.04.007

Figure 1:

Figure 1:

Assembly principles of bacterial microcompartments (MCPs). The BMC protein domain (purple) oligomerizes to form hexameric disks. Hundreds of hexamers tesselate side by side to form the nearly flat facets of the outer microcompartment shell (center). The BMV domain (chartreuse) is a distinctly different protein component, which oligomerizes to form pentamers at the polyhedral vertices of the microcompartment shell. Encapsulated enzymes are diagrammed in cyan. This idealized microcompartment shell is shown as a regular icosahedron. Most types of MCPs are polymorphic and less regular in shape.