Nucleic acid writing for antiphage-defense

Bacteria are under constant threat from invaders. To mitigate threats from viral pathogens, bacteria have evolved defense systems that rely upon writing long, random sequences of nucleic acids. We seek to understand how this process is regulated and how random nucleic acid synthesis can alleviate phage infection. To do so, we implement high-throughput workflows to identify novel nucleic acid writers as well as third-generation sequencing and mass spectrometry to uncover details about enzyme mechanism.

Image courtesy of the Protein Data Bank