Tags: Chemical Compound, Chemical Substance.
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.
