Mikhail A. Skutel

This paper characterizes OLD, an abortive immunity protein, revealing its structure and activation mechanism in response to phage replication and DNA defects in RecBCD-compromised cells.

This study elucidates the molecular mechanism of BREX anti-phage immunity by showing how BrxX methyltransferase recognizes DNA and forms an immune complex to protect against phage infection.

The paper shows that viral proteins activate PARIS-mediated tRNA degradation, and viral tRNAs rescue infection by preventing cleavage.