{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pbio.3003182","title":"An animal toxin-antidote system kills cells by creating a novel cation channel","abstract":"Toxin-antidote systems are selfish genetic elements composed of a linked toxin and antidote. The peel-1 zeel-1 toxin-antidote system in C. elegans consists of a transmembrane toxin protein PEEL-1 which acts cell autonomously to kill cells. Here we investigate the molecular mechanism of PEEL-1 toxicity. We find that PEEL-1 requires a small membrane protein, PMPL-1, for toxicity. Together, PEEL-1 and PMPL-1 are sufficient for toxicity in a heterologous system, HEK293T cells, and cause cell swelling and increased cell permeability to monovalent cations. Using purified proteins, we show that PEEL-1 and PMPL-1 allow ion flux through lipid bilayers and generate currents which resemble ion channel gating. Our work suggests that PEEL-1 kills cells by co-opting PMPL-1 and creating a cation channel.","journal":"PLoS Biology","year":2025,"id":541303,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9499,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":634617,"name":"Aguan Wei","orcid":"0000-0003-2596-9240","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":513295,"name":"Christopher A. Thomas","orcid":"0000-0003-2434-5049","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1153366,"name":"Galen Posch","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1333585,"name":"Ahmet Uremis","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":726483,"name":"Michaela C. Franzi","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":830573,"name":"Sarah J. Abell","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":822404,"name":"Andrew H. Laszlo","orcid":"0000-0002-7853-0533","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":822403,"name":"Jens H. Gundlach","orcid":"0000-0002-0773-8038","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":402204,"name":"Jan‐Marino Ramirez","orcid":"0000-0002-5626-3999","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":490372,"name":"Michael Ailion","orcid":"0000-0002-8070-1362","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":593383,"name":"Lews Caro","orcid":"0000-0003-3948-2548","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":49,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:52:47.161928Z","pmid":"40424258","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}