ArticlePLoS genetics2012
Viral evasion of a bacterial suicide system by RNA-based molecular mimicry enables infectious altruism.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 126 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Overview of Type II and III Toxin-Antitoxin Systems with a Focus on Druggability.Toxins · 2018Pooled it
- Bacterial Defense and Phage Counterdefense: Unraveling the Molecular Basis of Phage Resistance.ACS omega · 2026Review
- Bacterial immune systems.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Review
- Phage homing endonuclease amplifies anti-defense genes to evade bacterial immunity.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Bacterial defense mechanisms against bacteriophages: an evolutionary arms race.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Revisiting lactococcal abortive infection-like antiphage systems: diversity, structures, and mechanisms.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Design of Specific Peptide Inhibitors of Toxin-Antitoxin-Mediated Antiphage Defense.ACS synthetic biology · 2025Article
- In silico approaches for discovering microbial antiviral defense systems.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2025Review
- Beyond plasmid addiction: the role of toxin-antitoxin systems in the selfish behavior of mobile genetic elements.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Review
- Isolation and characterization of bacteriophages from clinical enterohemorrhagicMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- A minimal model of panimmunity maintenance by horizontal gene transfer in the ecological dynamics of bacteria and phages.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Dual Nature of Bacteriophages: Friends or Foes in Minimally Processed Food Products-A Comprehensive Review.Viruses · 2025Review
- Global structural survey of the flagellotropic myophage φTE infecting agricultural pathogen Pectobacterium atrosepticum.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Diverse genetic conflicts mediated by molecular mimicry and computational approaches to detect them.Seminars in cell & developmental biology · 2025Review
- Phage therapy against methicillin-resistantFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Features that matter: Evolutionary signatures can predict viral transmission routes.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- Isolation and characterization ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2024Article
- An enterococcal phage protein inhibits type IV restriction enzymes involved in antiphage defense.Nature communications · 2024Article
- The structural basis of the activation and inhibition of DSR2 NADase by phage proteins.Nature communications · 2024Article
- An enterococcal phage protein broadly inhibits type IV restriction enzymes involved in antiphage defense.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Abortive infection, during which an infected bacterial cell commits altruistic suicide to destroy the replicating bacteriophage and protect the clonal population, can be mediated by toxin-antitoxin systems such as the Type III protein-RNA toxin-antitoxin system, ToxIN. A flagellum-dependent bacteriophage of the Myoviridae, ΦTE, evolved rare mutants that "escaped" ToxIN-mediated abortive infection within Pectobacterium atrosepticum. Wild-type ΦTE encoded a short sequence similar to the repetitive nucleotide sequence of the RNA antitoxin, ToxI, from ToxIN. The ΦTE escape mutants had expanded the number of these "pseudo-ToxI" genetic repeats and, in one case, an escape phage had "hijacked" ToxI from the plasmid-borne toxIN locus, through recombination. Expression of the pseudo-ToxI repeats during ΦTE infection allowed the phage to replicate, unaffected by ToxIN, through RNA-based molecular mimicry. This is the first example of a non-coding RNA encoded by a phage that evolves by selective expansion and recombination to enable viral suppression of a defensive bacterial suicide system. Furthermore, the ΦTE escape phages had evolved enhanced capacity to transduce replicons expressing ToxIN, demonstrating virus-mediated horizontal transfer of genetic altruism.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.