AUTHOR=Blázquez Blas , Fresco-Taboada Alba , Iglesias-Bexiga Manuel , Menéndez Margarita , García Pedro TITLE=PL3 Amidase, a Tailor-made Lysin Constructed by Domain Shuffling with Potent Killing Activity against Pneumococci and Related Species JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=7 YEAR=2016 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01156 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2016.01156 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=
The emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is pushing the need of alternative treatments. In this context, phage therapy is already a reality to successfully fight certain multiresistant bacteria. Among different phage gene products, murein hydrolases responsible of phage progeny liberation (also called lysins or endolysins) are weapons that target specific peptidoglycan bonds, leading to lysis and death of susceptible bacteria when added from the outside. In the pneumococcal system, all but one phage murein hydrolases reported to date share a choline-binding domain that recognizes cell walls containing choline residues in the (lipo)teichoic acids. Some purified pneumococcal or phage murein hydrolases, as well as several chimeric proteins combining natural catalytic and cell wall-binding domains (CBDs) have been used as effective antimicrobials. In this work we have constructed a novel chimeric