Functional validation of putative toxin-antitoxin genes from the Gram-positive pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae: phd-doc is the fourth bona-fide operon.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial toxin-antitoxin (TAs) loci usually consist of two genes organized as an operon, where their products are bound together and inert under normal conditions. However, under stressful circumstances the antitoxin, which is more labile, will be degraded more rapidly, thereby unleashing its cognate toxin to act on the cell. This, in turn, causes cell stasis or cell death, depending on the type of TAs and/or time of toxin exposure. Previously based on in silico analyses, we proposed that Streptococcus pneumoniae, a pathogenic Gram-positive bacterium, may harbor between 4 and 10 putative TA loci depending on the strains. Here we have chosen the pneumococcal strain Hungary(19A)-6 which contains all possible 10 TA loci. In addition to the three well-characterized operons, namely relBE2, yef

SUBMITTER: Chan WT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4257102 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature