A VIRAL protein that punches holes in bacteria could help scientists to
devise new antibiotics.
Bacteria infected with a virus called a filamentous phage live normally but
occasionally belch out new copies of the phage. Now Denise Marciano and her
colleagues at Rockefeller University in New York have found that a viral protein
called pIV forms a pore in the bacterium’s cell membrane to let the phages out
(Science, vol 284, p 1516).
A mutant version of pIV makes cell membranes leaky by staying open too long,
the researchers discovered. They suspect that harmful bacteria release toxins
through similar channels. If so, compounds that pry these channels open could
kill bacteria by upsetting conditions inside them.