Tail assembly interference is a common strategy in bacterial antiviral defenses
Many bacterial immune systems recognize phage structural components to activate antiviral responses, without inhibiting the function of the phage component. These systems can be encoded in specific chromosomal loci, known as defense islands, and in mobile genetic elements such as prophages and phage-inducible chromosomal islands (PICIs). Here, we identify a family of bacterial immune systems, named Tai (for 'tail assembly inhibition'), that is prevalent in PICIs, prophages and P4-like phage satellites. Tai systems protect their bacterial host population from other phages by blocking the tail assembly step, leading to the release of tailless phages incapable of infecting new hosts. To prevent autoimmunity, some Tai-positive phages have an associated counter-defense mechanism that is expressed during the phage lytic cycle and allows for tail formation. Interestingly, the Tai defense and counter-defense genes are organized in a non-contiguous operon, enabling their coordinated expression.
Authors
- Eduardo P. C. Rocha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7704-822X)
- Tiago R. D. Costa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2716-9669)
- Nasser Alqurainy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3663-2865)
- Laura Miguel-Romero (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7631-6453)
- Lingchen He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2656-2573)
- Jonasz B. Patkowski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7301-1569)
- Alfred Fillol-Salom (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6464-285X)
- José R. Penadés (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6439-5262)
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Institut Pasteur (FR)
- King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (SA)
- Université Paris Cité (FR)
- Universidad Cardenal Herrera CEU (ES)
- NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (GB)
- Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia (ES)
- Imperial College London (GB)
- University of Glasgow (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-08-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51915-4
- Citations
- 16
- Primary Topic
- Bacteriophages and microbial interactions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 7.34
Funders
- Israel Cancer Research Fund
- Imperial College London
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
- Directorate for Biological Sciences
- Medical Research Council
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council