Evolutionary Features of Bacterial Toxins for Their Structure–Function Development

Dear Colleagues,

The basis of life on our planet is widely believed to be due to the biological evolution. The main reason for diversity is genetic variation coupled with random mutations. In other words, gene products, proteins, and other structural and functional biomolecules are largely responsible for producing diversity, promoting adaptational, and facilitating natural selection under a continuously changing environment. However, several questions remain unanswered, such as a) the main driving force of evolution (i.e., the basis of evolutionary pressure), b) why there is a variation in the rate of evolution, and c) the molecular mechanism of evolution. In view of these questions, a consideration of the physicochemical and molecular basis of mutation and the linking molecular mechanism of evolution are important. One potential approach could be to identify a group of molecules which should be able to connect structure and function to evolutionary conserved processes in the host. A group of interesting molecules to consider for this exercise is that of bacterial toxins. Bacterial toxins are a special group of highly evolved molecules which are involved in toxication as well as the survival of organisms. They are used as poison as well as therapeutic molecules, and interestingly, they use evolutionarily conserved biological processes of the host to execute their biological function.

Structurally, these molecules are uniquely designed and incorporate domains to construct highly effective biological molecules.

This issue will aim to incorporate the structural and functional features of bacterial toxins and put forward their unique evolutionary features.

Dr. Bal Ram Singh
Dr. Raj Kumar
Guest Editors

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• bacterial toxins
• biological function
• co-evolution
• evolution
• genomic size
• molecular flexibility
• multifunctionality
• mutation rates
• protein dynamics
• target hosts