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pubmed:abstractText |
Post-segregational killing systems are present in a large variety of microorganisms. When found on plasmids, they are described as addiction systems that act to maintain the plasmid during the partitioning of the cell. The plasmid to be maintained through the generations harbours a group of two genes, one coding for a stable toxin and the other coding for an unstable antitoxin that inhibits the effects of the toxin. If, during cell division, the plasmid is lost, the toxin and antitoxin proteins present in the cytosol cease to be newly expressed. The level of unstable antitoxin protein then rapidly decreases, leaving the toxin free to act on the cellular target, leading to cell death. Consequently, only cells harbouring the plasmid can survive.
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pubmed:affiliation |
Laboratoire de Microbiologie Alimentaire et Environnementale, Université catholique de Louvain, Croix du Sud, 2/12, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. fico@mbla.ucl.ac.be
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