Q:

Can a bacterium survive without GroEL protein?

In prokaryotes, GroEL protein (together with GroES) is required for protein folding. 
Question: Can a bacterium survive without GroEL protein?

A:

In E. coli, GroEL/GroES is found to interact with about 10% of all soluble proteins (Kerner et al. Cell 2005) and is the only chaperone essential to the bacterium under all tested conditions (Horwich et al. Cell 1993).

