Bacterial type II toxin-antitoxin systems acting through post-translational modifications

Bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems

Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are composed of two elements: a toxic protein and an antitoxin which is either an RNA (type I and III) or a protein (type II). Type II systems are abundant in bacterial genomes in which they move via horizontal gene transfer. They are generally composed of two genes organized in an operon, encoding a toxin and a labile antitoxin. When carried by mobile genetic eleme...

Identification and characterization of type II toxin-antitoxin systems

Bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems targeting translation

Toxin-antitoxin systems (TAS) emerged more than 25 years ago and have since developed as an important field in molecular microbiology. TAS are autoregulated operons coding a stable toxin and an unstable antitoxin found in the plasmids and chromosomes of Bacteria and Archaea. The conditional activation of their toxins interferes with cell growth/viability and, depending on the context, can influ...

Bacterial Toxin-antitoxin Systems Translation Inhibitors Everywhere the Toxin-antitoxin System Framework the Selfish Nature of Toxin-antitoxin Systems

*Correspondence to: Laurence Van Melderen; Email: [email protected] Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are composed of two elements: a toxic protein and an antitoxin which is either an RNA (type I and III) or a protein (type II). Type II systems are abundant in bacterial genomes in which theymove via horizontal gene transfer. They are generally composed of two genes organized in an operon, encoding ...

Endoribonuclease type II toxin-antitoxin systems: functional or selfish?

Most bacterial genomes have multiple type II toxin-antitoxin systems (TAs) that encode two proteins which are referred to as a toxin and an antitoxin. Toxins inhibit a cellular process, while the interaction of the antitoxin with the toxin attenuates the toxin's activity. Endoribonuclease-encoding TAs cleave RNA in a sequence-dependent fashion, resulting in translational inhibition. To account ...