In collaboration with the Bondy-Denomy Lab (UCSF) and an international team including Eugene Koonin (NIH) and Daniel Swaney (Gladstone Institutes), our latest study in Nature Communications dissects how bacteriophages counteract bacterial restriction systems.

Using quantitative proteomics and genetic analysis, the team identified multiple injected phage proteins that act as anti-restriction factors, effectively disarming layers of bacterial immunity during early infection.

The work reveals a modular and evolutionarily flexible strategy that phages use to bypass host defense barriers, expanding our understanding of how phages evolve to persist in hostile microbial environments.

Read the paper: Anti-restriction functions of injected phage proteins revealed by peeling back layers of bacterial immunity →