A viral "codebreaker" intercepts a host alarm

Artem Nemudryi; Anna Nemudraia; Tanner Wiegand; Samuel H Sternberg; Blake Wiedenheft

doi:10.1016/j.chom.2022.11.005

A viral "codebreaker" intercepts a host alarm

Cell Host Microbe. 2022 Dec 14;30(12):1647-1648. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2022.11.005.

Authors

Artem Nemudryi¹, Anna Nemudraia¹, Tanner Wiegand², Samuel H Sternberg², Blake Wiedenheft³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA.
² Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.
³ Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA. Electronic address: bwiedenheft@gmail.com.

PMID: 36521436
DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2022.11.005

Abstract

Immune systems generate diverse alarm signals in response to invading pathogens. In a recent Nature paper, Leavitt et al. identified a family of phage-encoded "codebreakers" that intercept nucleotide-derived immune signals and render the cell defenseless to viral infection.

MeSH terms

Bacteriophages* / physiology