Contact: Ditlev E. Brodersen
deb@mb.au.dk
45-21-66-90-01
Aarhus University

Bacteria Control the Amount of Toxin in the Cell

Caption: The toxins normally bind very strongly to the antitoxins and are thus not only inactive, but also prevent the production of more toxin from the information encoded in the bacterial DNA. During the dormant state, however, the antitoxins are degraded, and the toxins released (step 1). The free toxins now bind to unoccupied antitoxins on DNA within the area encoding the toxin-antitoxin couple (step 2). Binding increasing amounts of toxin eventually leads to the release of the molecules from the gene (steps 3 and 4) and finally to new toxin production.

Credit: Ditlev E. Brodersen

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