Mechanism of an animal toxin-antidote system
Caro, L.; Wei, A. D.; Thomas, C. A.; Posch, G.; Uremis, A.; Franzi, M. C.; Abell, S. J.; Laszlo, A. H.; Gundlach, J. H.; Ramirez, J.-M.; Ailion, M.
Show 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.
Matching journals
The top 3 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- Cryo-EM structure of a proton-activated chloride channel TMEM206 96%
- C9orf72-derived arginine-containing dipeptide repeats associate with axonal transport machinery and impede microtubule-based motility 95%
- Cargo selective vesicle tethering: the structural basis for binding of specific cargo proteins by the Golgi tether component TBC1D23 95%
Similar papers in this journal
- Evolutionarily related small viral fusogens hijack distinct but modular actin nucleation pathways to drive cell-cell fusion 96%
- A Myosin-7B dependent endocytosis pathway mediates cellular entry of α-Synuclein fibrils and polycation-bearing cargos 95%
- Synaptotagmin 1 oligomerization via the juxtamembrane linker regulates spontaneous and evoked neurotransmitter release 95%
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.