Abortive phage resistance mechanism AbiZ speeds the lysis clock to cause premature lysis of phage-infected Lactococcus lactis.

ABSTRACT: The conjugative plasmid pTR2030 has been used extensively to confer phage resistance in commercial Lactococcus starter cultures. The plasmid harbors a 16-kb region, flanked by insertion sequence (IS) elements, that encodes the restriction/modification system LlaI and carries an abortive infection gene, abiA. The AbiA system inhibits both prolate and small isometric phages by interfering with the early stages of phage DNA replication. However, abiA alone does not account for the full abortive activity reported for pTR2030. In this study, a 7.5-kb region positioned within the IS elements and downstream of abiA was sequenced to reveal seven additional open reading frames (ORFs). A single ORF, designated abiZ, was found to be responsible for a significant reduction in plaque size and an effici

SUBMITTER: Durmaz E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1797342 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature