Functionally comparable but evolutionarily distinct nucleotide-targeting effectors help identify conserved paradigms across diverse immune systems.

ABSTRACT: While nucleic acid-targeting effectors are known to be central to biological conflicts and anti-selfish element immunity, recent findings have revealed immune effectors that target their building blocks and the cellular energy currency-free nucleotides. Through comparative genomics and sequence-structure analysis, we identified several distinct effector domains, which we named Calcineurin-CE, HD-CE, and PRTase-CE. These domains, along with specific versions of the ParB and MazG domains, are widely present in diverse prokaryotic immune systems and are predicted to degrade nucleotides by targeting phosphate or glycosidic linkages. Our findings unveil multiple potential immune systems associated with at least 17 different functional themes featuring these effectors. Some of these systems sens

SUBMITTER: Nicastro GG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10681802 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature