Washington University in St. Louis (WU)
I am investigating how bacteriophage (phage) infection activates DarTG, an anti-phage defense in E. coli and other bacteria. DarTG is a toxin-antitoxin (TA) system in which the toxin, DarT, ADP-ribosylates phage DNA, blocking phage’s DNA metabolism (replication and transcription). Understanding how DarTG senses phage infection is an opportunity to delineate how bacteria distinguish self from non-self, a fundamental and largely unanswered question of bacterial immunology.