Identification and classification of bacterial Type III toxin-antitoxin systems encoded in chromosomal and plasmid genomes.

ABSTRACT: Toxin-antitoxin systems are widespread in bacteria and archaea. They perform diverse functional roles, including the generation of persistence, maintenance of genetic loci and resistance to bacteriophages through abortive infection. Toxin-antitoxin systems have been divided into three types, depending on the nature of the interacting macromolecules. The recently discovered Type III toxin-antitoxin systems encode protein toxins that are inhibited by pseudoknots of antitoxic RNA, encoded by short tandem repeats upstream of the toxin gene. Recent studies have identified the range of Type I and Type II systems within current sequence databases. Here, structure-based homology searches were combined with iterative protein sequence comparisons to obtain a current picture of the prevalence of Type

SUBMITTER: Blower TR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3401426 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature