Word.ws English Dictionary

holin

holin noun: any 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.

Noun

holin (plural holins)

  1. Any 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

Forms of holin

pluralholins

Words formed from holin

Questions about holin

What does holin mean?
Holin means any 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.
What part of speech is holin?
Holin is a noun.
What is the plural of holin?
The plural of holin is holins.

Words near holin in the dictionary

  1. holigays
  2. Holikachuk
  3. holily
  4. Holiman
  5. Holimans
  6. holin
  7. holiness
  8. holiness movement
  9. Holiness-Pentecostal
  10. holinesse
  11. holinesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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