bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/694695; this version posted July 6, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Ye et al., July 5, 2019 – BioRxiv preprint v1 HORMA domain proteins and a Pch2-like ATPase regulate bacterial cGAS-like enzymes to mediate bacteriophage immunity Qiaozhen Ye1, Rebecca K. Lau1,2, Ian T. Mathews2,3, Jeramie D. Watrous3, Camillia S. Azimi1*, Mohit Jain3,4, Kevin D. Corbett1,5,6† 1Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla California, USA 2Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla California, USA 3Department of Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla California, USA 4Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA 5Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla California, USA 6Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, San Diego Branch, La Jolla California, USA *Current Address: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA †Corresponding Author:
[email protected] Abstract Bacteria are continually challenged by foreign invaders including bacteriophages, and have evolved a variety of defenses against these invaders. Here, we describe the structural and biochemical mechanisms of a bacteriophage immunity pathway found in a broad array of bacteria, including pathogenic E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This pathway employs eukaryotic-like HORMA domain proteins that recognize specific peptides, then bind and activate a cGAS/DncV-like nucleotidyltransferase (CD-NTase) to generate a cyclic tri-AMP (cAAA) second messenger; cAAA in turn activates an endonuclease effector, NucC.