Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Jun 23.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2010 Jun 18;21(4):439–476. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2010.05.002

Table 2.

Selection of commonly applied biological pores in nanobiotechnology. Note, all illustrations of pores and lipids are drawn to scale to facilitate the comparison of their sizes

Pore Source Pore assembly La Illustration ø
Large Proteins α-hemolysin [69–71] Staphylococcus aureus bacterium Heptameric Pore graphic file with name nihms301115t1.jpg
aerolysin [72] Aeromonas hydrophila bacterium Heptameric Pore graphic file with name nihms301115t2.jpg
anthrax toxin [73] Bacillus anthracis bacterium Heptameric Pore graphic file with name nihms301115t3.jpg
diphtheria toxin [4•] Corynebacterium diphtherian bacterium Monomeric not shown
Small Peptides gramicidin A [33•,74–76] Bacillus brevis bacterium Head-to-head dimerization graphic file with name nihms301115t4.jpg
alamethicin [77,78] Trichoderma viride fungus Bundle of α-helices (4–11) graphic file with name nihms301115t5.jpg
melittin [79,80] Apis mellifera bee venom Bundle of α-helices similar to alamethicin
Porins MspA [30•] Myobacterium smegmatis bacterium Octameric Pore graphic file with name nihms301115t6.jpg
OmpG [81] Escherichia coli bacterium Monomeric Pore graphic file with name nihms301115t7.jpg
a

Length of the constriction zone within the lumen of the pore.