Prophages express a type IV pilus component to provide anti-phage defence
Sztanko, K. M.; Javorcik, P. N.; Fitzpatrick, A. D.; Lenskaia, T.; Maxwell, K. L.; Davidson, A. R.
10.1101/2024.03.29.587342 bioRxivShow abstract
Phage genomes integrated within bacterial genomes, known as prophages, frequently encode proteins that provide defence against further phage infection. These proteins often function at the cell surface and prevent phages from attaching to their host receptor. Here, we describe the discovery of prophage-encoded proteins that resemble FimU, a component of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa type IV pilus. These phage FimU proteins are incorporated into the pilus without altering its function, yet they mediate robust protection against infection by phages that bind to the tip of the pilus, where FimU is likely located. The phage FimU proteins and the phage tail proteins that interact with FimU are highly diverse, suggesting that evolution in this system is driven by phage versus phage competition. To our knowledge, this is the first example of anti-phage defence mediated by replacement of a bacterial cell surface component with a phage-encoded protein.
Matching journals
The top 3 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
- Tail-tape-fused virion and non-virion RNA polymerases of a thermophilic virus with an extremely long tail 98%
- Polyploidy, regular patterning of genome copies, and unusual control of DNA partitioning in the Lyme disease spirochete 97%
- Phages carry orphan antitoxin-like enzymes to neutralize the DarTG1 toxin-antitoxin defense system 97%
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.