Eukaryotic antiviral immune proteins arose via convergence, horizontal transfer, and ancient inheritance.

ABSTRACT: Animals use a variety of cell-autonomous innate immune proteins to detect viral infections and prevent replication. Recent studies have discovered that a subset of mammalian antiviral proteins have homology to anti-phage defense proteins in bacteria, implying that there are aspects of innate immunity that are shared across the Tree of Life. While the majority of these studies have focused on characterizing the diversity and biochemical functions of the bacterial proteins, the evolutionary relationships between animal and bacterial proteins are less clear. This ambiguity is partly due to the long evolutionary distances separating animal and bacterial proteins, which obscures their relationships. Here, we tackle this problem for three innate immune families (CD-NTases [including cGAS], STING

SUBMITTER: Culbertson EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10327000 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature