CcpN: a moonlighting protein regulating catabolite repression of gluconeogenic genes in also affects cell length and interacts with DivIVA.

CcpN is a transcriptional repressor in that binds to the promoter region of and , downregulating their expression in the presence of glucose. CcpN also represses , which encodes a small noncoding regulatory RNA that suppresses the arginine biosynthesis gene cluster. CcpN has homologues in other Gram-positive bacteria, including . We report the interaction of CcpN with DivIVA of as determined using bacterial two-hybrid and glutathione -transferase pull-down assays. Insertional inactivation of CcpN leads to cell elongation and formation of straight chains of cells. These findings suggest that CcpN is a moonlighting protein involved in both gluconeogenesis and cell elongation.