Anti-phage defence through inhibition of virion assembly

Pramalkumar H. Patel, Véronique L. Taylor, Chi Zhang, Landon J. Getz, Alexa D. Fitzpatrick, Alan R. Davidson and Karen L. Maxwell ()
Additional contact information
Pramalkumar H. Patel: University of Toronto
Véronique L. Taylor: University of Toronto
Chi Zhang: University of Toronto
Landon J. Getz: University of Toronto
Alexa D. Fitzpatrick: University of Toronto
Alan R. Davidson: University of Toronto
Karen L. Maxwell: University of Toronto

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Bacteria have evolved diverse antiviral defence mechanisms to protect themselves against phage infection. Phages integrated into bacterial chromosomes, known as prophages, also encode defences that protect the bacterial hosts in which they reside. Here, we identify a type of anti-phage defence that interferes with the virion assembly pathway of invading phages. The protein that mediates this defence, which we call Tab (for ‘Tail assembly blocker’), is constitutively expressed from a Pseudomonas aeruginosa prophage. Tab allows the invading phage replication cycle to proceed, but blocks assembly of the phage tail, thus preventing formation of infectious virions. While the infected cell dies through the activity of the replicating phage lysis proteins, there is no release of infectious phage progeny, and the bacterial community is thereby protected from a phage epidemic. Prophages expressing Tab are not inhibited during their own lytic cycle because they express a counter-defence protein that interferes with Tab function. Thus, our work reveals an anti-phage defence that operates by blocking virion assembly, thereby both preventing formation of phage progeny and allowing destruction of the infected cell due to expression of phage lysis genes.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45892-x Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-45892-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45892-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().