Phage biology articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bacteriophage T4 uses an enzyme known as ADP-ribosyltransferase ModB to modify the translational apparatus of bacteria it infects, not only by ADP-ribosylating proteins, but also by attaching entire RNA chains in a process known as RNAylation.

    • Maik Wolfram-Schauerte
    • , Nadiia Pozhydaieva
    •  & Katharina Höfer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A cryo-electron microscopy reconstruction of the virus ΦcrAss001 provides insights into the functions of the viral gene products in capsid assembly and infection.

    • Oliver W. Bayfield
    • , Andrey N. Shkoporov
    •  & Alfred A. Antson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nucleus-like compartment formed in bacteria during infection by jumbo phage 201phi2-1 is composed of the bacteriophage protein chimallin, which can self-assemble into closed compartments in vitro.

    • Thomas G. Laughlin
    • , Amar Deep
    •  & Elizabeth Villa

  • Article |

    Retron-Sen2 of Salmonella Typhimurium encodes a toxin and a reverse transcriptase, which, together with the Sen2 multi-copy single-stranded DNA synthesized by the reverse transcriptase make up a tripartite toxin–antitoxin system that functions in anti-phage defence.

    • Jacob Bobonis
    • , Karin Mitosch
    •  & Athanasios Typas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The bacterial genotoxin colibactin triggers prophage-mediated lysis of neighbouring bacteria, a finding that provides insight into the dynamics of microbial communities and relationships between bacterial metabolite production and phage behaviour.

    • Justin E. Silpe
    • , Joel W. H. Wong
    •  & Emily P. Balskus

  • Article |

    Structural analyses of the type III CRISPR accessory protein Card1, which induces dormancy in infected hosts to provide immunity against phage infection, reveal the mechanisms by which it cleaves single-stranded RNA and DNA.

    • Jakob T. Rostøl
    • , Wei Xie
    •  & Luciano A. Marraffini

  • Article |

    The RNA polymerase from the crAss-like bacteriophage phi14:2, which is translocated into the host cell with phage DNA and transcribes early phage genes, is structurally most similar to eukaryotic RNA interference polymerases, suggesting that the latter have a phage origin.

    • Arina V. Drobysheva
    • , Sofia A. Panafidina
    •  & Maria L. Sokolova

  • Article |

    Argonaute protein from the bacterium C. butyricum targets multicopy genetic elements and functions in the suppression of plasmid and phage propagation, and there appears to be a DNA-mediated immunity pathway in prokaryotes.

    • Anton Kuzmenko
    • , Anastasiya Oguienko
    •  & Andrey Kulbachinskiy

  • Letter |

    Members of a family of marine dsDNA non-tailed bacterial viruses have short, 10-kb genomes, infect a broader range of hosts than tailed viruses and belong to the double jelly roll capsid lineage of viruses, which are associated with diverse bacterial and archaeal hosts.

    • Kathryn M. Kauffman
    • , Fatima A. Hussain
    •  & Martin F. Polz

  • Article |

    Some phages—viruses that infect bacteria—encode peptides that are secreted from infected cells and that, beyond a certain threshold, stimulate other viruses to switch from the lytic (killing the host cell) to lysogenic (dormant) phase.

    • Zohar Erez
    • , Ida Steinberger-Levy
    •  & Rotem Sorek

  • Article |

    An integrated computational approach that explores the viral content of more than 3,000 metagenomic samples collected globally highlights the existing global viral diversity, increases the known number of viral genes by an order of magnitude, and provides detailed insights into viral distribution across diverse ecosystems and into virus–host interactions.

    • David Paez-Espino
    • , Emiley A. Eloe-Fadrosh
    •  & Nikos C. Kyrpides

  • Letter |

    The structure of the Cas1–Cas2 complex bound to a protospacer sequence illustrates how foreign DNA is captured and measured by bacterial proteins in preparation for integration into CRISPR loci.

    • James K. Nuñez
    • , Lucas B. Harrington
    •  & Jennifer A. Doudna

  • Letter |

    Bacterial cells evolved an immune system known as CRISPR–Cas to protect themselves from viral infection, triggering viruses to evolve anti-CRISPR proteins; here, three anti-CRISPR proteins are characterized, with each one interfering with the host CRISPR system at a different point.

    • Joseph Bondy-Denomy
    • , Bianca Garcia
    •  & Alan R. Davidson

  • Article |

    Bacterial CRISPR–Cas loci acquire short phage sequences called spacers that integrate between DNA repeats and how these viral sequences are chosen was unknown; in these studies of the type II CRISPR–Cas system of Streptococcus pyogenes, the Cas9 nuclease known to inactivate invading viral DNA was found to be required for the selection of functional spacers during CRISPR immunity.

    • Robert Heler
    • , Poulami Samai
    •  & Luciano A. Marraffini

  • Letter |

    This study reports the first application of Zernike phase contrast (ZPC) electron cryo-tomography to examine cellular processes without the need for labelling or sectioning; the technique is used to visualize the maturation of the cyanophage Syn5 inside its host cell, identifying subcellular compartments and five distinct Syn5 assembly intermediates.

    • Wei Dai
    • , Caroline Fu
    •  & Wah Chiu

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