ArticleBiochimica et biophysica acta2016
Single-cell, time-resolved study of the effects of the antimicrobial peptide alamethicin on Bacillus subtilis.
Article in Biochimica et biophysica acta, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Membrane-Traversing Peptides: Mechanistic Landscapes, Assays, and Applications.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- Time-Resolved Killing of Individual Bacterial Cells by a Polycationic Antimicrobial Polymer.ACS biomaterials science & engineering · 2024Article
- Article
- Imidazole and Imidazolium Antibacterial Drugs Derived from Amino Acids.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Maltose Induced Expression of Cecropin AD by SUMO Technology in Bacillus subtilis WB800N.The protein journal · 2020Article
- Silver Ions Caused Faster Diffusive Dynamics of Histone-Like Nucleoid-Structuring Proteins in Live Bacteria.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2020Article
- Review
- More Than a Pore: A Current Perspective on the In Vivo Mode of Action of the Lipopeptide Antibiotic Daptomycin.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- A How-To Guide for Mode of Action Analysis of Antimicrobial Peptides.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2020Review
- Spectroscopic and Microscopic Approaches for Investigating the Dynamic Interactions of Anti-microbial Peptides With Membranes and Cells.Frontiers in medical technology · 2020Review
- HaloTag Assay Suggests Common Mechanism of E. coli Membrane Permeabilization Induced by Cationic Peptides.ACS chemical biology · 2018Article
- Biophysical Investigations Elucidating the Mechanisms of Action of Antimicrobial Peptides and Their Synergism.Biomolecules · 2018Review
- Melittin-Induced Permeabilization, Re-sealing, and Re-permeabilization of E. coli Membranes.Biophysical journal · 2018Article
- Computational studies of peptide-induced membrane pore formation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Review
- Oxidative stress induced in E. coli by the human antimicrobial peptide LL-37.PLoS pathogens · 2017Article
- Revealing the sequence of interactions of PuroA peptide with Candida albicans cells by live-cell imaging.Scientific reports · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Alamethicin is a well-studied antimicrobial peptide (AMP) that kills Gram-positive bacteria. It forms narrow, barrel-stave pores in planar lipid bilayers. We present a detailed, time-resolved microscopy study of the sequence of events during the attack of alamethicin on individual, live Bacillus subtilis cells expressing GFP in the cytoplasm. At the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), the first observed symptom is the halting of growth, as judged by the plateau in measured cell length vs time. The data strongly suggest that this growth-halting event occurs prior to membrane permeabilization. Gradual degradation of the proton-motive force, inferred from a decrease in pH-dependent GFP fluorescence intensity, evidently begins minutes later and continues over about 5 min. There follows an abrupt permeabilization of the cytoplasmic membrane to the DNA stain Sytox Orange and concomitant loss of small osmolytes, causing observable cell shrinkage, presumably due to decreased turgor pressure. This permeabilization of the cytoplasmic membrane occurs uniformly across the entire membrane, not locally, on a timescale of 5s or less. GFP gradually leaks out of the cell envelope, evidently impeded by the shrunken peptidoglycan layer. Disruption of the cell envelope by alamethicin occurs in stages, with larger and larger species permeating the envelope as time evolves over tens of minutes. Some of the observed symptoms are consistent with the formation of barrel-stave pores, but the data do not rule out "chaotic pore" or "carpet" mechanisms. We contrast the effects of alamethicin and the human cathelicidin LL-37 on B. subtilis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.