Bacterial Secretion System

Bacterial Secretion System
Protein secretion, the transport of proteins from the cytoplasm into other parts of
the cell, the environment, and/or other bacteria or eukaryotic cells, is one of the
essential functions of a prokaryotic cell. Prokaryotes have developed a number of
transporting proteins between locations which are largely involved in the help of
dedicated protein secretion systems.
Protein secretion systems are important for the growth of bacteria and are useful in a
lot of processes. It has been found that some secretion systems are almost in all
bacteria and they will secrete a wide variety of substrates, while others have been
found in just a few bacterial species and are involved to secrete only one or a few
proteins. In certain cases, bacterial pathogens use these dedicated secretion systems
to manipulate the host and build a replicative niche. Other times, these secretion
systems will make use of an environmental niche to assist bacteria to compete with
nearby microorganisms. Several different classes of bacterial secretion systems exist,
and their designs differ based on the number of transmembranes in the protein
substrate.