ArticleNature microbiology2020
SspABCD-SspE is a phosphorothioation-sensing bacterial defence system with broad anti-phage activities.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 85 papers.
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Who cites it
85 citing papers in PubMed, 133 citations in OpenAlex.
- How bacterial immune systems sense phage infection.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Dual cytosine modification through hydroxylation and arabinofuranosylation in phages.Nature chemical biology · 2026Article
- Phage hijacks host phosphorothioate DNA modification machinery to circumvent bacterial Ssp defences.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Genomic and experimental characterization of unique Antarctic temperate phage Perkons reveals multiple integrases and complex lysogenic dynamics in Psychrobacillus sp. L4.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- A 5-hydroxymethylcytosine DNA glycosylase provides defense against T-even bacteriophages.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Diverse Bacterial Anti-Phage Strategies: From the Laboratory to the Clinic.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Review
- It's not me, it's you: Anti-phage nuclease specificity inside a bacterium.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Expanding the landscape of BREX diversity: uncovering multi-layered functional frameworks and identification of novel BREX-related defense systems.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Phosphorothioate DNA modification by BREX type 4 systems in the human gut microbiome.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Bacterial defense systems: Mechanisms, homology to eukaryotic immune systems, and applications.Zoological research · 2026Review
- Immunity: defense against infections essential for all living organisms.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Characterization of a newly isolated broad-host-range lytic phage WEN7 against multidrug-resistant clinicalFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Biology of host-dependent restriction-modification in prokaryotes.EcoSal Plus · 2025Review
- In silico approaches for discovering microbial antiviral defense systems.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2025Review
- Bacterial restriction-modification systems: mechanisms of defense against phage infection.Biophysics reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Dark Matter Carried byInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Defence systems encoded by core genomic islands of seventh pandemicPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Article
25 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
23 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bacteria have evolved diverse mechanisms to fend off predation by bacteriophages. We previously identified the Dnd system, which uses DndABCDE to insert sulfur into the DNA backbone as a double-stranded phosphorothioate (PT) modification, and DndFGH, a restriction component. Here, we describe an unusual SspABCD-SspE PT system in Vibrio cyclitrophicus, Escherichia coli and Streptomyces yokosukanensis, which has distinct genetic organization, biochemical functions and phenotypic behaviour. SspABCD confers single-stranded and high-frequency PTs with SspB acting as a nickase and possibly introducing nicks to facilitate sulfur incorporation. Strikingly, SspABCD coupled with SspE provides protection against phages in unusual ways: (1) SspE senses sequence-specific PTs by virtue of its PT-stimulated NTPase activity to exert its anti-phage activity, and (2) SspE inhibits phage propagation by introducing nicking damage to impair phage DNA replication. These results not only expand our knowledge about the diversity and functions of DNA PT modification but also enhance our understanding of the known arsenal of defence systems.
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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.