Bacillus spores are protected by a protein shell consisting of over 50 different polypeptides, known as the coat. This family of proteins has an important morphogenetic role in coat assembly, it is involved in the assembly of at least 5 different coat proteins including CotB, CotG, CotS, CotSA and CotW. It is likely to act at a late stage of coat assembly [1].

1: Characterization of the Bacillus subtilis spore morphogenetic coat protein CotO. McPherson DC, Kim H, Hahn M, Wang R, Grabowski P, Eichenberger P, Driks A; J Bacteriol. 2005;187:8278-8290. PMID:16321932