Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
A study reports the structure and molecular mechanism of the Bil anti-phage defence system, demonstrating that it is the closest prokaryotic homologue of canonical eukaryotic ubiquitination pathways.
To mitigate phage infection, an antiphage defence system in bacteria conjugates a ubiquitin-like protein to a structural protein of the phage, demonstrating that conjugation of ubiquitin-like proteins is an antiviral strategy conserved across all life forms.
Subpopulations of Streptococcus pyogenes CRISPR mutants with overactive CRISPR–Cas activity wax and wane in response to phage infection pressure, enabling phage evasion without requiring a transient response in any one cell.
Phage therapy often relies on labour-intensive and time-consuming methods that could lead to delays in medical treatment. Here, authors describe an all-in-one solution for navigating multiple, large, decentralized biobanks, allowing for rapid high-throughput phage susceptibility testing.
Edited bacteria were stably maintained in mouse gut for at least 42 days following the delivery of a base editor using an engineered phage-derived particle to modify Escherichia coli colonizing the gut.
A real-world study of 100 diverse cases facilitated by a single centre for individualized bacteriophage therapy demonstrates feasibility and provides new hope for refractory and resistant bacterial infections.
Reporting in Nature Communications, Huo and colleagues provide three-dimensional structures of a bacterial immune defense system called Gabija. This work builds on recently published structural and functional studies and contributes strong evidence that protein assembly formation is essential for antiviral function.
We deeply characterized the early-life gut virome, which consists mainly of bacteriophages (phages) and the diversity of which greatly exceeds bacterial diversity. The virome was associated with later asthma development, independently of the bacterial hosts of the phages; we further uncovered intriguing interactions with immune genetics.
Two recent studies provide mechanistic understanding of how bacteria employ the Gabija system for defence against phages, as well as how phages use anti-defence proteins to overcome bacterial immunity.