AbiA

The AbiA defense system was discovered in 1990 in a lactococcal plasmid (N/A) .

AbiA is one of the so-called "Abi" systems for "Abortive infection" discovered in the 90's in research related to the dairy industry (N/A) . AbiA is classified as a possible abortive infection in (N/A) .

Since it was discovered a similarity in amino acids was found with AbiK.

However, with the discovery of dozens of new systems, it was categorized as one of the UG/Abi defense systems (N/A) along with DRT different subsystems, AbiK, AbiP2 and Rst_RT_Nitralase_TM.

Those systems are characterized by the presence of a reverse transcriptase domain of the "Unknown Group RT".

Molecular mechanism

To our knowledge, the molecular mechanism is unknown. Similarly, for the other systems of this family, the molecular mechanism remains unknown.

Example of genomic structure

A total of 2 subsystems have been described for the AbiA system.

Here is some examples found in the RefSeq database:

The AbiA_large system in Staphylococcus nepalensis (GCF_002442935.1, NZ_CP017466) is composed of 1 protein: AbiA_large (WP_096808013.1)

The AbiA_small system in Alicyclobacillus sp. SO9 (GCF_016406125.1, NZ_CP066339) is composed of 2 proteins AbiA_small (WP_198850075.1) AbiA_SLATT (WP_198850076.1)

Distribution of the system among prokaryotes

Structure

Experimental validation

      
graph LR;
    Chopin_2005[Chopin et al., 2005] --> Origin_0
    Origin_0[lactococcal plasmid  
AAA65072.1] --> Expressed_0[lactococci]
    Expressed_0[lactococci] ----> 936 & c2 & P335
    subgraph Title1[Reference]
        Chopin_2005
end
    subgraph Title2[System origin]
        Origin_0
end
    subgraph Title3[Expression species]
        Expressed_0
end
    subgraph Title4[Protects against]
        936
        c2
        P335
end
    style Title1 fill:none,stroke:none,stroke-width:none
    style Title2 fill:none,stroke:none,stroke-width:none
    style Title3 fill:none,stroke:none,stroke-width:none
    style Title4 fill:none,stroke:none,stroke-width:none