ArticleBMC microbiology2015
Fratricide activity of MafB protein of N. meningitidis strain B16B6.
Article in BMC microbiology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Antigenicity in mice of a recombinantVirulence · 2025Article
- Structural basis for the toxic activity of MafB2 from maf genomic island 2 (MGI-2) in N. meningitidis B16B6.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- BlpC-mediated selfish program leads to rapid loss of Streptococcus pneumoniae clonal diversity during infection.Cell host & microbe · 2023Article
- PAT: a comprehensive database of prokaryotic antimicrobial toxins.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
- Thiostrepton, a resurging drug inhibiting the stringent response to counteract antibiotic-resistance and expression of virulence determinants inFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Review
- Editorial: PathogenicFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2022Article
- Biofilms as Promoters of Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance and Tolerance.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Article
- The Central Role of Interbacterial Antagonism in Bacterial Life.Current biology : CB · 2020Review
- Polymorphic Toxins and Their Immunity Proteins: Diversity, Evolution, and Mechanisms of Delivery.Annual review of microbiology · 2020Review
- Inactivation of Genes Encoding MutL and MutS Proteins Influences Adhesion and Biofilm Formation byMicroorganisms · 2019Article
- Molecular interactions between Neisseria meningitidis and its human host.Cellular microbiology · 2019Review
- Substrate specificity of the pyrophosphohydrolase LpxH determines the asymmetry ofThe Journal of biological chemistry · 2019Article
- Interstrain Cooperation in Meningococcal Biofilms: Role of Autotransporters NalP and AutA.Frontiers in microbiology · 2017Article
- Biological Functions of the Secretome ofFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2017Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundNeisseria meningitidis is an inhabitant of the mucosal surfaces of the human nasopharynx. We recently demonstrated that the secreted meningococcal Two-partner secretion protein A (TpsA) is involved in interbacterial competition. The C-terminal end of the large TpsA protein contains a small toxic domain that inhibits the growth of target bacteria. The producing cells are protected from this toxic activity by a small immunity protein that is encoded by the gene immediately downstream of the tpsA gene. Further downstream on the chromosome, a repertoire of toxic modules, designated tpsC cassettes, is encoded that could replace the toxic module of TpsA by recombination. Each tpsC cassette is associated with a gene encoding a cognate immunity protein.
resultsBlast searchers using the toxic domains of TpsA and TpsC proteins as queries identified homologies with the C-terminal part of neisserial MafB proteins, which, for the rest, showed no sequence similarity to TpsA proteins. On the chromosome, mafB genes are part of genomic islands, which include cassettes for additional toxic modules as well as genes putatively encoding immunity proteins. We demonstrate that a MafB protein of strain B16B6 inhibits the growth of a strain that does not produce the corresponding immunity protein. Assays in E. coli confirmed that the C-terminal region of MafB is responsible for toxicity, which is inhibited by the cognate immunity protein. Pull-down assays revealed direct interaction between MafB toxic domains and the cognate immunity proteins.
conclusionsThe meningococcal MafB proteins are novel toxic proteins involved in interbacterial competition.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.