{"id":13351,"date":"2019-11-06T13:04:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T18:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/?p=13351"},"modified":"2020-10-28T22:31:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T02:31:58","slug":"researchers-discover-a-new-toxin-that-impedes-bacterial-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/researchers-discover-a-new-toxin-that-impedes-bacterial-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers discover a new toxin that impedes bacterial growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
An international research collaboration has discovered a new toxin, which bacteria inject into their neighboring cells to hinder growth and compete for limited resources. Their findings\u00a0were published<\/a>\u00a0on November 6 in\u00a0Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n At McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, co-senior author John Whitney and his team were studying a secretion system that allows bacteria to deliver these deleterious molecules, when they came across a new toxin. This toxin was an enzyme, and one they had never seen before. Based on their structural analyses, it looked a lot like the enzymes that synthesize guanosine tetra- and penta-phosphate, collectively known as \u201c(p)ppGpp.\u201d (p)ppGpp is a signaling molecule that helps bacteria safely dial down their growth rate in response to starvation. Suspecting the toxin might produce (p)ppGpp in recipient cells and ultimately impact their growth, the McMaster team shared their findings with\u00a0Michael Laub<\/a>, a professor of biology at MIT and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.<\/p>\n