Orphan MTases are common in bacteria and archea CcrM is found in almost every group of Alphaproteobacteria, excepting in Rickettsiales and Magnetococcales, and homologs can be found in Campylobacterota and Gammaproteobacteria. Alphaproteobacteria are organisms with different life stages from free living to substrate associated, some of them are intracellular pathogens of plants, animal and even human, in those groups the CcrMs must have an important role in cell cycle progression.
CcrM miss regulation have shown to produce severe miss control of cell cycle regulation and differentiation in various Alphaproteobacteria; C. crescentus , the plant symbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti and in the human pathogen Brucella abortus. Also CcrM gene has proven to be essential for the viability of various Alphaproteobacteria.