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How does a single methyl group activate bacterial defence?
In my PhD work with @matthiaswilmanns.bsky.social and @typaslab.bsky.social, we reveal how this tiny DNA modification triggers retron disassembly and toxin activation.
Now on bioRxiv:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Single-site DNA methylation activates retron defence by enabling effector tetramerisation
Retrons are unique among bacterial defence systems in using DNA to sense phage infection. They achieve this by producing multicopy single-stranded DNA (msDNA) that monitors the activity of DNA-targeti...