{"publication":"Biology Letters","acknowledgement":"This work was supported by ISTFELLOW (People Program – Marie Curie Actions of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program FP7 under REA grant agreement 291734), the FWF (Austrian Science Fund) Elise Richter Program project number V 738 and the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Award (WT105618MA), to N.N. M.P. was a Simons Foundation Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. We are grateful to Kathrin Tomasek, Lisa Butt, Chris Estell, Alys Jepson, Franklin Nobrega, Stefano Pagliara, Remy Chait, Steve West, Vicki Gold, Josh Eaton, Ivana Gudelj and Rob Beardmore for useful discussions and technical support, as well as to Robin Wright, Christian Fitch and Ben Temperton for sharing equipment. We thank Laurence Van Melderen for sharing the strains. We acknowledge the IST Austria Lab Support Facility, LSI Technical Services Team at the University of Exeter and the Translational Research Exchange @ Exeter (TREE) network. N.N. is grateful to Fabrice Gielen for his support.","corr_author":"1","author":[{"full_name":"Nikolic, Nela","first_name":"Nela","orcid":"0000-0001-9068-6090","last_name":"Nikolic","id":"42D9CABC-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87"},{"id":"4569785E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","last_name":"Pleska","full_name":"Pleska, Maros","orcid":"0000-0001-7460-7479","first_name":"Maros"},{"orcid":"0000-0001-5396-4346","first_name":"Tobias","full_name":"Bergmiller, Tobias","last_name":"Bergmiller","id":"2C471CFA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87"},{"id":"47F8433E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","last_name":"Guet","first_name":"Calin C","orcid":"0000-0001-6220-2052","full_name":"Guet, Calin C"}],"article_processing_charge":"Yes (via OA deal)","quality_controlled":"1","acknowledged_ssus":[{"_id":"LifeSc"}],"status":"public","file":[{"file_size":1850797,"date_created":"2025-06-23T11:34:39Z","access_level":"open_access","file_name":"2025_BiologyLetters_Nikolic.pdf","success":1,"checksum":"016f644ed068f8609ded306ad26dbd3f","creator":"dernst","file_id":"19873","content_type":"application/pdf","date_updated":"2025-06-23T11:34:39Z","relation":"main_file"}],"publisher":"The Royal Society","publication_status":"published","citation":{"short":"N. Nikolic, M. Pleska, T. Bergmiller, C.C. Guet, Biology Letters 21 (2025).","chicago":"Nikolic, Nela, Maros Pleska, Tobias Bergmiller, and Calin C Guet. “A Bacterial Toxin-Antitoxin System as a Native Defence Element against RNA Phages.” <i>Biology Letters</i>. The Royal Society, 2025. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080\">https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080</a>.","ieee":"N. Nikolic, M. Pleska, T. Bergmiller, and C. C. Guet, “A bacterial toxin-antitoxin system as a native defence element against RNA phages,” <i>Biology Letters</i>, vol. 21, no. 6. The Royal Society, 2025.","ama":"Nikolic N, Pleska M, Bergmiller T, Guet CC. A bacterial toxin-antitoxin system as a native defence element against RNA phages. <i>Biology Letters</i>. 2025;21(6). doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080\">10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080</a>","ista":"Nikolic N, Pleska M, Bergmiller T, Guet CC. 2025. A bacterial toxin-antitoxin system as a native defence element against RNA phages. Biology Letters. 21(6), 20250080.","apa":"Nikolic, N., Pleska, M., Bergmiller, T., &#38; Guet, C. C. (2025). A bacterial toxin-antitoxin system as a native defence element against RNA phages. <i>Biology Letters</i>. The Royal Society. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080\">https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080</a>","mla":"Nikolic, Nela, et al. “A Bacterial Toxin-Antitoxin System as a Native Defence Element against RNA Phages.” <i>Biology Letters</i>, vol. 21, no. 6, 20250080, The Royal Society, 2025, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080\">10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080</a>."},"article_number":"20250080","ddc":["570"],"pmid":1,"department":[{"_id":"CaGu"}],"has_accepted_license":"1","external_id":{"pmid":["40494395"]},"month":"06","project":[{"call_identifier":"FP7","_id":"25681D80-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425","name":"International IST Postdoc Fellowship Programme","grant_number":"291734"},{"grant_number":"V00738","name":"Bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems as antiphage defense mechanisms","call_identifier":"FWF","_id":"26956E74-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425"}],"publication_identifier":{"issn":["1744-9561"],"eissn":["1744-957X"]},"intvolume":"        21","OA_type":"hybrid","language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"file_date_updated":"2025-06-23T11:34:39Z","date_published":"2025-06-11T00:00:00Z","_id":"19857","scopus_import":"1","date_created":"2025-06-22T22:02:06Z","type":"journal_article","oa":1,"day":"11","article_type":"original","volume":21,"abstract":[{"text":"Bacteria have evolved a wide range of defence strategies to protect themselves against bacterial viruses (phages). Most known bacterial antiphage defence systems target phages with DNA genomes, which raises the question of how bacteria defend against phages with RNA genomes. Bacterial toxin–antitoxin systems that cleave intracellular RNA could potentially protect bacteria against RNA phages, but this has not been explored experimentally. In this study, we investigated the role of a model toxin–antitoxin system, MazEF, in protecting Escherichia coli against two RNA phage species. When challenged with these phages, the native presence of mazEF moderately reduced population susceptibility and increased the survival of individual E. coli cells. Genomic analysis further revealed an underrepresentation of the MazF cleavage site in genomes of RNA phages infecting E. coli, indicating selection against cleavage. These results show that, in addition to other physiological roles, RNA-degrading toxin–antitoxin systems may also help defend against RNA phages.","lang":"eng"}],"OA_place":"publisher","user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","tmp":{"image":"/images/cc_by.png","name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)","legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","short":"CC BY (4.0)"},"date_updated":"2025-06-23T11:36:17Z","title":"A bacterial toxin-antitoxin system as a native defence element against RNA phages","ec_funded":1,"doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0080","oa_version":"Published Version","issue":"6","year":"2025"}