Vito De Pinto

Multimerization Strategy to Create an Artificial Pore-forming Protein Vito De Pinto

Porines generate little or no selective water channels, sometimes voltage-dependent, and several of them play important roles in specific cellular pathways. Through a preliminary bioinformatic analysis was identified a pattern of basic protein with a hairpin structure (?-strand/loop/?-strand) from the PA83 protein of Bacillus anthracis. Through the realization of a very quick and simple experimental protocol we built an artificial construct with seven multimers of the basic module. The experimental plan developed allowed us to obtain in a few days a chimeric protein completely artificial, which was cloned into a bacterial expression vector. Expression experiments has carried out interesting results since we observed that the induced bacterial cultures were less cloudy, indicating a reduced cell growth. In accordance with the recent literature we are inclined to believe that the protein acts like antibiotic, fitting massively in the membrane and causing cell lysis of the host bacteria. This strategy could be used for the production of artificial proteins with biological, pharmaceutical and industrial high-impact.