Introduction to the Lantibiotics session

Abstract

Lantibiotics are a group of antibacterial peptides which are distinguished from other bacteriocins of Gram-positive bacteria by unique structural features. The designation lantibiotics was proposed as abbreviation for lanthionine-containing peptide antibiotics to indicate their characteristic properties, i.e. the content of the thioether amino acid lanthionine and the antibacterial activity (Schnell et al., 1988). Besides lanthionine and its analogue 3-methyllanthionine all lantibiotics contain the α, β unsaturated amino acids didehydroalanine and/or didehydrobutyrine. Individual lantibiotics may have further unusual residues such as S-aminovinyl-cysteine, erythro-3-hydroxyaspartic acid and lysinoalanine. A detailed description of these residues and the structures of lantibiotics is given by S. Freund and G. Jung in this session.