Abstract
BACTERIAL synthesis of polypeptide antibiotics occurs during the exponential phase or early stationary phase of growth1. The compounds synthesized vary in molecular weight from about 350 to 14,000 (ref. 2); nisin, produced by Streptococcus lactis, has a molecular weight estimated at 7,000 (ref. 3). This brings nisin into the class of small proteins rather than polypeptides because insulin, for example, has a molecular weight of 6,000 (ref. 4). The biosynthesis of nisin was studied recently using washed cell suspensions of S. lactis (NCDO 497) (ref. 5). Inhibitors of protein synthesis and actinomycin D, which inhibits mRNA synthesis, also inhibited nisin synthesis, which suggested that this process resembled the ribosomal mechanism of protein synthesis.
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HURST, A. Function of Nisin and Nisin-like Basic Proteins in the Growth Cycle of Streptococcus lactis. Nature 214, 1232–1234 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2141232a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2141232a0
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