Lantibiotics are biologically active peptides produced by several strains from the phyla Firmicutes and Actinobacteria. They are ribosomally synthesized and undergo posttranslational modifications that endow them with the characteristic (methyl)-lanthionine residues. As a result, lantibiotics contain a variable number of rings, each carrying one thioether link. Many lantibiotics inhibit growth of Gram-positive bacterial strains by interfering with peptidoglycan formation. Because they bind to the key intermediate lipid II at a site not affected by clinically used antibiotics, they are effective against multidrug-resistant strains. We describe a bioassay-based method suitable for finding antibacterial lantibiotics from actinomycete strains and provide selected procedures for characterizing newly discovered lantibiotics for their antibacterial properties.
CITATION STYLE
Jabes, D., & Donadio, S. (2010). Strategies for the isolation and characterization of antibacterial lantibiotics. Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.), 618, 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60761-594-1_3
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