Weapons Against Bacteria

Bacteria have an #arsenal of molecular weaponry that they use to wage wars for survival. One of these weapons is Nisin—a bacterial toxin or bacteriocin made of 34 amino acids known to punch holes into the membranes of other bacteria to kill them. Although #Nisin is a weapon of bacterial origins, humans use it as a #food preservative.Nisin is known to kill bacteria by perforating their membranes and interrupting cell-wall biosynthesis by docking onto a fat molecule known as lipid II. The scientists have shown that at high concentrations, Nisin interacts with #phospholipids on bacterial membranes to deform them, eventually killing the bacteria.➽See more