Breaking free: "protein antibiotics" and phage lysis. Academic Article

abstract

• Bacteriophages must destroy the bacterial cell wall to lyse their host and release their progeny into the environment. There are at least two distinct mechanisms by which phages destroy the cell wall. Bacteriophages with large genomes use a holin-endolysin system, while bacteriophages with small genomes encode a single lysis protein. Three unrelated single protein lysis systems are known and these proteins will be the focus of the review. Recent results indicate that at least two of these proteins inhibit cell wall synthesis and are thus the phage analogs of antibiotics like penicillin.

authors

• Young, Ryland

published proceedings

• Res Microbiol

altmetric score

• 3

author list (cited authors)

• Bernhardt, T. G., Wang, I., Struck, D. K., & Young, R. y.

citation count

• 77

complete list of authors

• Bernhardt, Thomas G||Wang, Ing-Nang||Struck, Douglas K||Young, Ry

publication date

• January 2002

publisher

• Elsevier  Publisher

published in

• Research in Microbiology  Journal

keywords

• Bacteriolysis
• Bacteriophages
• Cell Wall
• Viral Proteins

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1016/s0923-2508(02)01330-x

start page

• 493

end page

• 501

volume

• 153

issue

• 8

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0923-2508(02)01330-x