The hemX gene of the Bacillus subtilis hemAXCDBL operon encodes a membrane protein, negatively affecting the steady-state cellular concentration of HemA (glutamyl-tRNA reductase).

The Bacillus subtilis hemAXCDBL operon encodes enzymes for the biosynthesis of uroporphyrinogen III from glutamyl-tRNA. The function of the hemX gene product was studied in this work. The deduced amino acid sequence suggests HemX to be an integral 32 kDa membrane protein. This was confirmed by experiments using Escherichia coli minicells and hemX-phoA gene fusions. Deletion of the hemX gene from the Bacillus subtilis chromosome demonstrated that this gene is net required for haem synthesis. However, the deletion strain was found to overexpress the hemA gene product, glutamyl-tRNA reductase. A combination of results obtained with B. subtilis hemA and hemX in Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis shows that HemX negatively affects the steady-state cellular concentration of HemA protein. The mechanism by which HemX affects the HemA concentration is unclear.