Iturin A and its derivatives are lipopeptide antibiotics produced by Bacillus subtilis and several closely related bacteria. Three iturin group operons (i.e., iturin A, mycosubtilin, and bacillomycin D) of those antibiotic-producing strains have been cloned and sequenced thus far, strongly implying the horizontal transfer of these operons. To examine the nature of such horizontal transfer in te...

Sublancin 168 is a member of a small group of glycosylated antimicrobial peptides known as glycocins. The solution structure of sublancin 168, a 37-amino-acid peptide produced by Bacillus subtilis 168, has been solved by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Sublancin comprises two α-helices and a well-defined interhelical loop. The two helices span residues 6-16 and 26-35, and the loo...

Bacterial endospore formers can produce spores that are resistant to many food processing conditions, including heat. Some spores may survive heating processes aimed at production of commercially sterile foods. Recently, it was shown that a spoVA operon, designated spoVA2mob, present on a Tn1546 transposon in Bacillus subtilis, leads to profoundly increased wet heat resistance of B. subtilis sp...

Surfactin is a cyclic lipopeptide biosurfactant. Transposon mutagenesis was performed in Bacillus subtilis strain 168, and a surfactin-susceptible mutant, strain 801, was isolated. Analysis of the region of insertion revealed that yerP was the determinant of surfactin self-resistance. YerP had homology with the resistance, nodulation, and cell division (RND) family proton motive force-dependent...