Pyocyanin

Pyocyanin (PCN) is one of the many toxins produced and secreted by the Gram negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Pyocyanin is a blue, secondary metabolite with the ability to oxidise and reduce other molecules and therefore can kill microbes competing against P. aeruginosa as well as mammalian cells of the lungs which P. aeruginosa has infected during cystic fibrosis. Since pyocyanin is a zwitterion at blood pH, it is easily able to cross the cell membrane. There are three different states in which pyocyanin can exist; oxidized, monovalently reduced or divalently reduced. Mitochondria play a huge role in the cycling of pyocyanin between its redox states. Due to its redox-active properties, pyocyanin generates reactive oxygen species.