Thursday 9 July 2015

Bacterial outer membrane proteins and antimicrobials

The discovery of how a group of bacteria rapidly adapts to changing growth conditions could have implications for future antibiotic development, according to research at the University of Oxford and the University of York.

Gram-negative bacteria have intricate regulatory mechanisms for ensuring they have the right complement of outer membrane proteins -- known as OMPs -- for a particular habitat. But little is known about how OMPs are replaced in the outer membrane when bacteria adapt to changes in their growth conditions.

The new research describes how bacteria are able to change the proteins in their outer membrane and how this is intimately linked to the process of protein insertion in the membrane.

For details about the research, see:

Rassam P, Copeland NA, Birkholz O, Toth C, Chavent M, Duncan A, Cross SJ, Housden NG, Kaminska R, Seger U, Quinn DM, Garrod TJ, Sansom MSP, Piehler J, Baumann CG and Kleanthous C. Supramolecular assemblies underpin turnover of outer membrane proteins in bacteria. Nature, June 2015 DOI: 10.1038/nature14461

Posted by Tim Sandle

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