{"doi":"10.1101/2020.07.13.199331","title":"Prophage-encoded phage defense proteins with cognate self-immunity","abstract":"Summary Temperate phages are pervasive in bacterial genomes, existing as vertically-inherited islands called prophages. Prophages are vulnerable to the predation of their host bacterium by exogenous phages. Here we identify BstA, a novel family of prophage-encoded phage defense proteins found in diverse Gram-negative bacteria. BstA drives potent suppression of phage epidemics through abortive infection. During lytic replication, the bstA -encoding prophage is not itself inhibited by BstA due to a self-immunity mechanism conferred by the anti-BstA ( aba ) element, a short stretch of DNA within the bstA locus. Inhibition of phage replication by distinct BstA proteins from Salmonella, Klebsiella and Escherichia prophages is functionally interchangeable, but each possesses a cognate aba element. The specificity of the aba element ensures that immunity is exclusive to the replicating prophage, and cannot be exploited by heterologous BstA-encoding phages. BstA allows prophages to defend host cells against exogenous phage attack, without sacrificing their own lytic autonomy.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":119806,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":15,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.956,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":555890,"name":"Nicolas Wenner","orcid":"0000-0001-6257-9423","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555891,"name":"Charles L. Dulberger","orcid":"0000-0002-1334-5468","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555892,"name":"Ella V. Rodwell","orcid":"0000-0002-6358-6542","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":556661,"name":"Arthur Bowers-Barnard","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89646,"name":"Natalia Quinones-Olvera","orcid":"0000-0002-4612-6819","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555893,"name":"Daniel J. Rigden","orcid":"0000-0002-7565-8937","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":247777,"name":"Eric J. Rubin","orcid":"0000-0001-5120-962X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":295159,"name":"Ethan C. Garner","orcid":"0000-0003-0141-3555","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":276820,"name":"Michael Baym","orcid":"0000-0003-1303-5598","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555894,"name":"Jay C. D. Hinton","orcid":"0000-0003-2671-6026","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555889,"name":"Siân V. Owen","orcid":"0000-0001-5330-3177","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":93,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:14:13.002105Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}