Contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) systems encode polymorphic toxin/immunity proteins that mediate competition between neighbouring bacterial cells [1]. Despite sharing little sequence identity, the toxin domains are structurally similar and h ...
Contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) systems encode polymorphic toxin/immunity proteins that mediate competition between neighbouring bacterial cells [1]. Despite sharing little sequence identity, the toxin domains are structurally similar and have homology to endonucleases. The EC869 toxin is a Zn(2+)-dependent DNase capable of completely degrading the genomes of target cells [1].