MurA (MurZ), the enzyme that catalyzes the first committed step in peptidoglycan biosynthesis, is essential in Escherichia coli

The Escherichia coli gene murZ was recently shown to encode UDP-N-acetylglucosamine enolpyruvyl transferase, which catalyzes the first committed step of peptidoglycan biosynthesis (J. L. Marquardt, D. A. Siegele, R. Kolter, and C. T. Walsh, J. Bacteriol. 174:5748-5752, 1992). The map position of murZ (69.3 min) differed from that determined for murA (90 min), a gene which had been previously proposed to encode the same activity (P.S. …