Staphylococcus epidermidis bacteriocin A37 kills natural competitors with a unique mechanism of action.

ABSTRACT: Many bacteria produce antimicrobial compounds such as lantibiotics to gain advantage in the competitive natural environments of microbiomes. Epilancins constitute an until now underexplored family of lantibiotics with an unknown ecological role and unresolved mode of action. We discovered production of an epilancin in the nasal isolate Staphylococcus epidermidis A37. Using bioinformatic tools, we found that epilancins are frequently encoded within staphylococcal genomes, highlighting their ecological relevance. We demonstrate that production of epilancin A37 contributes to Staphylococcus epidermidis competition specifically against natural corynebacterial competitors. Combining microbiological approaches with quantitative in vivo and in vitro fluorescence microscopy and cryo-electron tomog

SUBMITTER: Puls JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10988021 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature