This N-terminal domain of various bacterial protein families is crucial for the targetting of periplasmic or extracellular proteins to specific regions of the bacterial envelope. AMIN is derived from the N-terminal domain of AmiC, an N-acetylmuramoyl-l-alanine amidase of Escherichia coli which localises to the septal ring during division and plays a key role in the separation of daughter cells. The AMIN domain is present in several protein families besides amidases suggesting that AMIN may represent a general targetting determinant involved in the localisation of periplasmic protein complexes [1].

1: AMIN domains have a predicted role in localization of diverse periplasmic protein complexes. de Souza RF, Anantharaman V, de Souza SJ, Aravind L, Gueiros-Filho FJ; Bioinformatics. 2008;24:2423-2426. PMID:18723522