Antimicrobial Peptides, Polymorphic Toxins, and Self-Nonself Recognition Systems in Archaea: an Untapped Armory for Intermicrobial Conflicts.

ABSTRACT: Numerous, diverse, highly variable defense and offense genetic systems are encoded in most bacterial genomes and are involved in various forms of conflict among competing microbes or their eukaryotic hosts. Here we focus on the offense and self-versus-nonself discrimination systems encoded by archaeal genomes that so far have remained largely uncharacterized and unannotated. Specifically, we analyze archaeal genomic loci encoding polymorphic and related toxin systems and ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial peptides. Using sensitive methods for sequence comparison and the "guilt by association" approach, we identified such systems in 141 archaeal genomes. These toxins can be classified into four major groups based on the structure of the components involved in the toxin delivery. The toxi

SUBMITTER: Makarova KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6509191 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature