holin

plural holins

1. biologyAny of a diverse group of small proteins produced by dsDNA bacteriophages in order to trigger and control the degradation of the host's cell wall at the end of the lytic cycle.

   All known pneumococcal phages contain a cell wall lytic system consisting of a holin that permeabilizes the cell membrane, and either an N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase (amidase) or a lysozyme, capable of digesting the pneumococcal cell wall (8 ).

   2001 December 7, Jutta M. Loeffler et al., “Rapid Killing of Streptococcus pneumoniae with a Bacteriophage Cell Wall Hydrolase”, in Science, volume 294, number 5549, →DOI, pages 2170–2172