Single-channel characterization of the chitooligosaccharide transporter chitoporin (SmChiP) from the opportunistic pathogen Serratia marcescens

Targeting bacteria with blocked pores

22 December 2022

The unusual diet of a multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacterium offers a promising target for developing novel antibiotic drugs.

Serratia marcescens is an opportunistic pathogen responsible for community- and hospital-acquired infections.

The bacterium can use chitin, an amino-polysaccharide, as its primary energy source. It produces chitin-degrading enzymes to break the long biopolymer into bite-sized chitooligosaccharides. These are then imported into the cell via selective, pore-forming proteins.

One such pore protein could be targeted by novel antibiotics to block this energy source, a team led by researchers from Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC) in Thailand has found.

The researchers showed that the protein formed a stable monomeric pore in an artificial bacterial cell membrane. Once formed, the pore selectively permitted the passage chitooligosaccharides, but not other oligosaccharides.

This protein could offer an attractive target for drugs that use a novel mechanism to inhibit the pathogen.

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References

1. Journal of Biological Chemistry 298, 102487 (2022). doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2022.102487