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AbiZ system

traitmech:000228 · CLASS · PROPOSED

An abortive infection system in which an organism possesses an abiZ locus encoding a membrane-associated lactococcal phage-resistance determinant that accelerates infected-cell lysis through AbiZ-enhanced holin/lysin activity and restricts P335 phage propagation.

Trait evidence (7)

  • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06
    A single ORF, designated abiZ, was found to be responsible for a significant reduction in plaque size and an efficiency of plaquing (EOP) of 10−6, without affecting phage adsorption

    Durmaz and Klaenhammer localized the pTR2030 AbiZ phage resistance determinant to the abiZ open reading frame.

  • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06
    The new phage resistance gene, designated abiZ, encodes an abortive infection resistance which results in cell death after infection and appears to limit the production of progeny phage

    Durmaz and Klaenhammer place the abiZ determinant in the abortive-infection class rather than adsorption or restriction-modification defense.

  • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06
    The average burst size of φ31 on NCK203(pTRKH2) of 316 ± 68 was reduced by two logs to 3 ± 1.4 for NCK203(pTRKH2:E4)

    Durmaz and Klaenhammer show that the abiZ-containing subclone strongly reduces production of infectious phage progeny.

  • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06
    The measures of both optical density and viable cell count showed that holin- and lysin-induced lysis in the phage-free system occurred 30 min earlier when AbiZ was present

    Durmaz and Klaenhammer support AbiZ-associated acceleration of holin/lysin-driven cell lysis.

  • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06
    AbiZ enhances the permeability of cells in which holin alone was expressed

    Durmaz and Klaenhammer connect AbiZ to increased membrane-permeability in holin-induced cells.

  • DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0298680
    We focus our investigation on AbiZ, an abortive infection mechanism discovered and described by Durmaz et al. [18] as leading to premature cell lysis during phage infection, and one of the most understood Abi mechanisms on L. lactis

    Philippe et al. support AbiZ as a named Lactococcus abortive infection mechanism with phage-induced premature lysis.

  • DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0298680
    NCK4 and IL6 cells were made electrocompetent and then electroporated with plasmid pTRK914 (pTRK686:abiZ, Cmr) to obtain NCK5 and IL7 (AbiZ+) using methods from [31]

    Philippe et al. reused the abiZ-containing pTRK914 plasmid to construct independent AbiZ-positive Lactococcus strains.

AbiZ accelerates premature lysis to restrict P335 phages

Evidence-backed process sketch linking an abiZ locus to enhanced holin/lysin activity, premature infected-cell lysis, restricted phage propagation, and abortive-infection system possession.

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures AbiZ at the system level without asserting a direct physical AbiZ-holin interaction, an exact phage activator, or one known phage-escape mutation.

AbiZ accelerates premature lysis to restrict P335 phages Interactive directed graph showing evidence-backed causal relationships for AbiZ system.

Edge evidence

  • abiZ locus contributes to AbiZ-enhanced holin/lysin activity RO:0002326

    The abiZ locus contributes to accelerated holin/lysin-driven lysis.

    • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06 The measures of both optical density and viable cell count showed that holin- and lysin-induced lysis in the phage-free system occurred 30 min earlier when AbiZ was present Durmaz and Klaenhammer assayed φ31 holin and lysin expression in the presence of abiZ.
  • AbiZ-enhanced holin/lysin activity contributes to premature infected-cell lysis RO:0002326

    AbiZ-enhanced lysis activity contributes to premature lysis of phage-infected cells.

    • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06 AbiZ enhances the permeability of cells in which holin alone was expressed Durmaz and Klaenhammer connect AbiZ to enhanced holin-associated membrane permeability.
  • premature infected-cell lysis contributes to restricted phage propagation RO:0002326

    Premature AbiZ-associated lysis limits the yield of infectious P335 phage progeny.

    • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06 The average burst size of φ31 on NCK203(pTRKH2) of 316 ± 68 was reduced by two logs to 3 ± 1.4 for NCK203(pTRKH2:E4) Durmaz and Klaenhammer measured a lower single-step burst size in cells carrying the AbiZ-active E4 subclone.
  • restricted phage propagation confers AbiZ system METPO:2007700

    Restriction of P335 phage propagation realizes the AbiZ abortive-infection defense trait.

    • DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06 The new phage resistance gene, designated abiZ, encodes an abortive infection resistance which results in cell death after infection and appears to limit the production of progeny phage Durmaz and Klaenhammer classify abiZ as an abortive-infection phage resistance gene.
  • AbiZ system is a abortive infection system rdfs:subClassOf

    AbiZ system possession is an abortive-infection-system trait.

    • DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0298680 AbiZ, an abortive infection mechanism discovered and described by Durmaz et al. [18] as leading to premature cell lysis during phage infection Philippe et al. place AbiZ in the abortive infection class of phage defense.

Provenance

Identifier source
TraitMech local identifier
Definition source
DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06

Parent traits (1)

kg-microbe context

No kg-microbe node embedding matched this record in the 2026-04-25 deepwalk.

Canonical examples (1)

Organisms cited as exemplars of this trait. Taxon ids are NCBITaxon and link out to the NCBI record.

  • Lactococcus lactis NCBITaxon:1358 DOI:10.1128/JB.00904-06 Durmaz and Klaenhammer localized the pTR2030 abiZ determinant from Lactococcus lactis ME2 and showed that abiZ expression in Lactococcus lactis NCK203 produced abortive phage resistance with premature lysis of phage-infected cells.

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Minted AbiZ system as a DOI-backed GENOMICS TraitRecord under the abortive infection system parent after an ignored-and-hidden duplicate review found no exact live TraitMech, METPO, or prior proposal record; the replacement placeholder is reserved in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v105.

  2. · CURATED_CAUSAL_GRAPH · codex

    Corrected the AbiZ premature-lysis edge from mitigates restricted phage propagation to contributes to restricted phage propagation after local adversarial review issue 962 identified that the old predicate inverted the intended antiphage effect.