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holin. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
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Noun
holin (plural holins)
- (biology) Any of a diverse group of small proteins produced by dsDNA bacteriophages in order to trigger and control the degradation of the host's cell wall at the end of the lytic cycle.
2001 December 7, Jutta M. Loeffler et al., “Rapid Killing of Streptococcus pneumoniae with a Bacteriophage Cell Wall Hydrolase”, in Science, volume 294, number 5549, →DOI, pages 2170–2172:All known pneumococcal phages contain a cell wall lytic system consisting of a holin that permeabilizes the cell membrane, and either an N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase (amidase) or a lysozyme, capable of digesting the pneumococcal cell wall (8 ).
Derived terms