Systematic Discovery of Antibacterial and Antifungal Bacterial Toxins

Abstract Microbes employ toxins to kill competing microbes or eukaryotic host cells. Polymorphic toxins are proteins that encode C-terminal toxin domains. Here, we developed a computational approach to discover novel toxin domains of polymorphic toxins within 105,438 microbial genomes. We validated nine short novel toxins (“PTs”) that cause bacterial or yeast cell death. The novel PTs are encoded by ∼2.2% of the sequenced bacteria, including numerous pathogens. We also identified five cognate immunity genes (“PIMs”) that neutralize the toxins. Intriguingly, we observed an antifungal effect of the PTs against various pathogenic fungi. The toxins likely act as enzymes that cause severe damage to cell shape, membrane, and DNA. Finally, we solved the 3D structure of two PTs in complex with their PIMs, and showed that they function as novel DNAses. The new potent toxins likely play key roles in inter-microbial competition and can be utilized in various clinical and biotechnological applications.