Viruses are considered biological entities that possess a genome and can adapt to the environment of living organisms. Since they are obligate intracellular parasites, their cycle of replication can result in cell death, and consequently, some viruses are harmful to mammalian cells and can cause disease in humans. Therefore, the search for substances for the treatment of viral diseases can be accomplished through the use of bacteriophages as models for eukaryotic cell viruses. Thus, this review highlights the main studies identifying substances with antiphage activity in comparison assays involving phages and eukaryotic viruses, in order to explore the potential of these substances as antivirals. As a future perspective, this approach may help at the beginning of an Antiviral Age.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.2217/fmb-2019-0320 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
HAMpering infection: Helicase ratcheting emerges as a phage-sensing mechanism.
Cell Host Microbe
December 2024
National Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology and College of Life Science and Technology, Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Huazhong Agricultural University, 430070 Wuhan, China. Electronic address:
The sensing of pathogens is the first step for any immune response. A recent paper in Cell reveals that the bacterial Hachiman anti-phage defense system deploys a helicase subunit to sense phage invasion via 3' DNA recognition and subsequent domain rotation to enable nuclease activation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStructure and mechanism of the Zorya anti-phage defense system.
Nature
December 2024
Structural Biology of Molecular Machines Group, Protein Structure & Function Program, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Zorya is a recently identified and widely distributed bacterial immune system that protects bacteria from viral (phage) infections. Three Zorya subtypes have been discovered, each containing predicted membrane-embedded ZorAB complexes paired with soluble subunits that differ among Zorya subtypes, notably ZorC and ZorD in type I Zorya systems. Here, we investigate the molecular basis of Zorya defense using cryo-electron microscopy, mutagenesis, fluorescence microscopy, proteomics, and functional studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMolecular basis of the phosphorothioation-sensing antiphage defense system IscS-DndBCDE-DndI.
Nucleic Acids Res
December 2024
Department of Gastroenterology, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Combinatorial Biosynthesis and Drug Discovery, Hubei Clinical Center and Key Laboratory of Intestinal and Colorectal Disease, TaiKang Center for Life and Medical Sciences, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, 169 Donghu Road, Wuchang District, Wuhan 430071, China.
Phosphorothioation serves as a DNA backbone modification mechanism, wherein a sulfur atom substitutes the nonbridging oxygen atom within the phosphodiester, facilitated by the gene products of dndABCDE or sspABCD. The combination of dndABCDE with dndFGH forms a bona fide defense system, where the DndFGH protein complex exhibits DNA nickase and DNA translocase activities to prevent phage invasion. In this study, we identified that dndI, co-transcribed with dndFGH, can independently couple with iscS-dndBCDE as an anti-phage defense system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBacterial WYL domain transcriptional repressors sense single-stranded DNA to control gene expression.
Nucleic Acids Res
December 2024
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr. La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
Bacteria encode a wide array of immune systems to protect themselves against ubiquitous bacteriophages and foreign DNA elements. While these systems' molecular mechanisms are becoming increasingly well known, their regulation remains poorly understood. Here, we show that an immune system-associated transcriptional repressor of the wHTH-WYL-WCX family, CapW, directly binds single-stranded DNA to sense DNA damage and activate expression of its associated immune system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiversification of molecular pattern recognition in bacterial NLR-like proteins.
Nat Commun
November 2024
Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Antiviral STANDs (Avs) are bacterial anti-phage proteins evolutionarily related to immune pattern recognition receptors of the NLR family. Type 2 Avs proteins (Avs2) were suggested to recognize the phage large terminase subunit as a signature of phage infection. Here, we show that Avs2 from Klebsiella pneumoniae (KpAvs2) can recognize several different phage proteins as signature for infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!