🔬 Tailocin

Discussion

<p>From Gill and Young (2011), p. 377: "Many bacteria have taken advantage of the cellular leakage associated with the phage DNA ejection process by evolving 'tailocins', a term we propose here for what were originally called 'high-molecular weight pyocins' when they were first identified in Pseudomonas strains... Basically, these are the apparent products of degenerate prophage elements which lack head genes; when the tailocin determinants are expressed, headless phage particles are produced that appear to kill the target cells by the same hole-forming process used for phage DNA ejection, except that no DNA ever goes through to cause re-sealing of the hole. The new term tailocin is justified because the same entities have now been found in many other Prokaryotic species">bacterial species, and the continued use of the pyocin term would be misleading."

External links

References

How to cite this page