Expression, purification and preliminary crystallographic analysis of N‐acetylglucosamine‐1‐phosphate uridylyltransferase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The gene product of open reading frame Rv1018c from Mycobacterium tuberculosis is annotated as encoding a probable N‐acetylglucosamine 1‐phosphate uridylyltransferase (MtbGlmU), an enzyme that catalyzes the biosynthesis of UDP‐N‐acetylglucosamine, a precursor common to lipopolysaccharide and peptidoglycan biosynthesis. Following overexpression in Escherichia coli, the enzyme was purified and crystallized using the hanging‐drop vapour‐diffusion method. Native diffraction data were collected from crystals belonging to space group R32 and processed to a resolution of 2.2 Å.