ArticleNature communications2022
Antibiotic polymyxin arranges lipopolysaccharide into crystalline structures to solidify the bacterial membrane.
Article in Nature communications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 108 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Antibody-recruiting molecules based on mimotope fusion peptides and a dimeric antibiotic.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- LPS in gram-negative bacterial growth and physiology: outside but fully integrated.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2026Review
- A functionally selectedApplied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Discriminating Between Living and Dead Bacteria With a Field-Effect Transistor Based on Nano-Channels.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Dual-Mechanism Antimicrobial Peptides from a Nature-Inspired Scaffold.Journal of medicinal chemistry · 2026Article
- Deep learning-enabled discovery of antibiotics effective againstScience translational medicine · 2026Article
- Biological activity of serine-proline dipeptide to Enterobacteriaceae bacteria.Molecular biology reports · 2026Article
- Periplasmic crowding and peptidoglycan hydrolase activity as drivers of outer membrane vesiculation in Acinetobacter baumannii.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Bacterial cell envelope-targeting antibiotics.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Temporin-GHa-derived peptides enhance the antibacterial and antibiofilm activities of polymyxin B against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli.Archives of microbiology · 2026Article
- Emerging Biomedical Engineering Therapies for Infected Diabetic Foot Ulcers: Toward Antibacterial Functionalization and Pathology-Responsive Regulation.Small science · 2026Review
- A functionally selectedbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Polymyxins slow down lateral diffusion of proteins and lipopolysaccharide in the E. coli outer membrane.Communications biology · 2025Article
- A lignan compound regulates LPS modifications via PmrA/B signaling cascades to potentiate colistin efficacy in vivo.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- The structure of the bacterial outer membrane transporter FusA enabled by addition of the native lipid lipopolysaccharide.Journal of structural biology: X · 2025Article
- Article
- Mechanistic basis of antimicrobial resistance mediated by the phosphoethanolamine transferase MCR-1.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Ionomer engineering for optimized water channels in industry-scale water electrolysis using non-noble metal catalyst.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Polymyxin B lethality requires energy-dependent outer membrane disruption.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Polymyxins are last-resort antibiotics with potent activity against multi-drug resistant pathogens. They interact with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in bacterial membranes, but mechanistic details at the molecular level remain unclear. Here, we characterize the interaction of polymyxins with native, LPS-containing outer membrane patches of Escherichia coli by high-resolution atomic force microscopy imaging, along with structural and biochemical assays. We find that polymyxins arrange LPS into hexagonal assemblies to form crystalline structures. Formation of the crystalline structures is correlated with the antibiotic activity, and absent in polymyxin-resistant strains. Crystal lattice parameters alter with variations of the LPS and polymyxin molecules. Quantitative measurements show that the crystalline structures decrease membrane thickness and increase membrane area as well as stiffness. Together, these findings suggest the formation of rigid LPS-polymyxin crystals and subsequent membrane disruption as the mechanism of polymyxin action and provide a benchmark for optimization and de novo design of LPS-targeting antimicrobials.
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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.