page_title: Polylysine
section_title: Chemical structure and function
hierarchical_section_title: Polylysine / Chemical structure and function
caption_attribution_description: English: Structure of α-Polylysine. High-resolution black/white .PNG file made with Chemsketch and GIMP
context_page_description: Polylysine refers to several types of lysine homopolymers, which may differ from each other in terms of stereochemistry and link position.
context_section_description: The precursor amino acid lysine contains two amino groups, one at the α-carbon and one at the ε-carbon. Either can be the location of polymerization, resulting in α-polylysine or ε-polylysine. Polylysine is a homopolypeptide belonging to the group of cationic polymers: at pH 7, polylysine contains a positively charged hydrophilic amino group.
  α-Polylysine is a synthetic polymer, which can be composed of either L-lysine or D-lysine. "L" and "D" refer to the chirality at lysine's central carbon. This results in poly-L-lysine (PLL) and poly-D-lysine (PDL) respectively.
  ε-Polylysine (ε-poly-L-lysine, EPL) is typically produced as a homopolypeptide of approximately 25–30 L-lysine residues. According to  research, ε-polylysine is adsorbed electrostatically to the cell surface of the bacteria, followed by a stripping of the outer membrane. This eventually leads to the abnormal distribution of the cytoplasm causing damage to the bacterial cell that is produced by bacterial fermentation. ε-Poly-L-lysine is used as a natural preservative in food products.
caption: Structure of α-polylysine
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