Antimicrobial peptide class that forms discrete β-barrel stable pores anchored by transmembrane helices.

ABSTRACT: Bacteriocin peptides are weapons of inter-bacterial warfare and belong to the larger group of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which are frequently proposed as alternatives to antibiotics. Many AMPs kill by destroying the target's cytoplasmic membrane using short-lived membrane perturbations. Contrastingly, protein toxins form large pores by stably assembling in the target membrane. Here we describe an AMP class termed TMcins (for transmembrane helix-containing bacteriocin), in which half of the AMP forms a transmembrane helix. This characteristic allows TMcin to assemble into stable and large oligomeric pores. The biosynthetic locus of TMcin, which was broadly active against Gram-positive bacteria, is distributed throughout two major bacterial phyla, yet bears no homology to previously repo

SUBMITTER: Dickey SW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12328743 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature