ArticlePLoS biology2025
An animal toxin-antidote system kills cells by creating a novel cation channel.
Article in PLoS biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Rapid protamine evolution suppresses meiotic drive inScience advances · 2026Article
- sept-1/zina-1 is an ancient toxin-antidote system in Caenorhabditis elegans.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Parental-effect gene-drive elements under partial selfing, or why do Caenorhabditis genomes have hyperdivergent regions?Genetics · 2025Article
- Parental-effect gene-drive elements under partial selfing, or why dobioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
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11 authors.
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Abstract
Toxin-antidote systems are selfish genetic elements composed of a linked toxin and antidote. The peel-1 zeel-1 toxin-antidote system in C. elegans consists of a transmembrane toxin protein PEEL-1 which acts cell autonomously to kill cells. Here we investigate the molecular mechanism of PEEL-1 toxicity. We find that PEEL-1 requires a small membrane protein, PMPL-1, for toxicity. Together, PEEL-1 and PMPL-1 are sufficient for toxicity in a heterologous system, HEK293T cells, and cause cell swelling and increased cell permeability to monovalent cations. Using purified proteins, we show that PEEL-1 and PMPL-1 allow ion flux through lipid bilayers and generate currents which resemble ion channel gating. Our work suggests that PEEL-1 kills cells by co-opting PMPL-1 and creating a cation channel.
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