Colicins are a family of proteins that play an important role in protecting the body from bacterial infections. They are produced by white blood cells, neutrophils and macrophages and are an important component of innate immunity. Colicins act by damaging bacterial cells, resulting in their death and removal from the body.
The discovery of colicins is associated with the name of the Russian microbiologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, who in 1908 discovered how the process of phagocytosis depends on certain protein fragments called colicins. Colicin