Rational design of synthetic antimicrobial peptides based on the Escherichia coli ShoB toxin.

ABSTRACT: Antibiotic resistance is an escalating global concern, necessitating the development of novel antibiotics with unique mechanisms of action, and preferably also with a lowered propensity for resistance development. Type-I Toxin-Antitoxin (TA) systems that are ubiquitous in bacterial genomes consist of a genetic toxin element encoding a hydrophobic peptide and an antitoxin element producing an sRNA that inhibits the toxin translation. Although the biological roles of these membrane-associated toxins remain incompletely understood, their inherent lethality upon overexpression suggests a potential as antimicrobial agents. In this study, we explore the ShoB toxin from the shoB-ohsC TA system in Escherichia coli (E. coli) as a basis for designing synthetic antimicrobial peptides for exogenous de

SUBMITTER: Sæbo IP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12022103 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature