European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Porins are a class of outer membrane proteins which are harboured inside the outer membrane of gram negative bacteria. They are diffusion channels that are involved in transport of solutes across the outer membrane. However, their role in survival of the pathogens has been well emphasized in several reviews. Among various advantages that they confer upon the bacterium that harbours them, an important survival strategy is to induce cell death of the target host cells. They use multiple cell death mechanisms reflecting on the flexibility and evolution of their characteristics pertaining to spread of infection inside the host. In this chapter, we intend to discuss the basics of programmed cell death followed by a comprehensive account of different strategies used by porins form multiple pathogens to induce death of the infected cells.