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Phage biology

T4 to TA, checkmate

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 10, pages 160–161 (2012)Cite this article

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if antitoxin genes prove to be widespread among phages, the resulting evolutionary struggle may help to explain the expanded number of TA systems found in certain bacterial species.

In addition to the large virulence plasmid pO157, enterohaemorrhagic E. coli O157:H7 contains a cryptic plasmid, pOSAK1, that carries just three genes. One gene, mobA, is important for plasmid mobilization, but the other two genes, lsoA and lsoB, encode products of unknown function. The authors found that the predicted proteins from these two genes exhibited weak but significant sequence similarity to RNA ligase 1 (RnlA) and RNA ligase 2 (RnlB), which form a recently characterized E. coli toxin–antitoxin (TA) system. TA systems consist of a stable toxin and an unstable antitoxin that antagonizes the action of its specific toxin. Under certain conditions, such as cellular stress, the antitoxin can be rapidly degraded, releasing the active toxin to inhibit one of a range of cellular functions. When the authors expressed LsoA in cells in the absence of LsoB, they observed a growth defect and a dramatic reduction in the steady-state levels of cellular mRNAs. Co-expression of LsoB rescued the growth defect and normal mRNA levels, indicating that, like RnlAB, LsoAB form a TA pair that targets cellular mRNAs when activated.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Otsuka, Y. & Yonesaki, T. Dmd of bacteriophage T4 functions as an antitoxin against Escherichia coli LsoA and RnlA toxins. Mol. Microbiol. 18 Jan 2012 (doi:10.1111/j.1365-2958.2012.07975.x)

FURTHER READING

  1. Yamaguchi, Y. & Inouye, M. Regulation of growth and death in Escherichia coli by toxin–antitoxin systems. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 9, 779–790 (2011)Article

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Labrie, S. J., Samson, J. E. & Moineau, S. Bacteriophage resistance mechanisms. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 8, 317–327 (2010))Article

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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Authors
  1. Andrew Jermy
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Jermy, A. T4 to TA, checkmate. Nat Rev Microbiol 10, 160–161 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro2748

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