BstA system

traitmech:000301 · CLASS · PROPOSED

An abortive infection system in which an organism possesses a BstA-family phage-defense locus whose encoded BstA protein can suppress lytic phage DNA replication and whose cognate anti-BstA aba element can self-immunize the encoding prophage from BstA activity.

Trait evidence (9)

DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002
we identify BstA, a family of prophage-encoded phage-defense proteins in diverse Gram-negative bacteria

Owen et al. name BstA as a family of prophage-encoded phage-defense proteins.
DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002
the BstA protein confers effective population-level defense against exogenous phage infection via abortive infection

Owen et al. support BstA as an abortive-infection phage-defense system.
DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002
demonstrating that the BstA protein mediates defense against phage P22

Owen et al. show that phage resistance against P22 is BstA-protein dependent.
DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002
BstA provides phage defense at the population level and prevents the spread of phage epidemics

Owen et al. connect BstA activity to suppression of phage epidemics at population level.
DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002
phage DNA replication is strongly suppressed by BstA, but replication can be rescued by the aba element

Owen et al. support the direct phage-DNA-replication output of BstA and suppression by the cognate aba self-immunity element.
DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002
each bstA locus contains a cognate aba element that is inactive against variant BstA proteins

Owen et al. show that aba self-immunity is cognate to its co-encoded BstA variant.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
BstA | 10\.1101/2020\.07\.13\.199331 | Prophage-encoded phage defense proteins with cognate self-immunity

The DefenseFinder article registry maps the named BstA system to the Owen et al. BstA preprint.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/Liste_hmm_system.md
BstA__BstA | BstA__BstA | BstA

The DefenseFinder HMM inventory records a BstA profile for BstA__BstA in the BstA model namespace.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/DefenseFinder_rules.tsv
BstA BstA 1 1 BstA__BstA

The DefenseFinder rules table models BstA as a one-component system requiring the BstA__BstA profile.

BstA loci suppress lytic phage DNA replication through abortive infection

Conservative system-level sketch linking possession of a BstA phage-defense locus to suppressed lytic phage DNA replication, cognate aba-mediated self-immunity, and the BstA system trait without asserting the unresolved direct phage trigger, BstA molecular target, or mechanism of aba-mediated self-immunity.

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures BstA as a named abortive-infection system with a DefenseFinder BstA profile while leaving the direct trigger of BstA localization, the direct DNA replication target, the physical form of the BstA-aba interaction, and the molecular basis for cognate aba specificity unresolved.

Edge evidence

BstA locus includes aba self-immunity element biolink:has_part
BstA loci contain a cognate anti-BstA aba self-immunity element.
- DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 each bstA locus contains a cognate aba element that is inactive against variant BstA proteins Owen et al. show that BstA loci carry cognate aba elements.
BstA locus contributes to suppressed lytic phage DNA replication RO:0002326
Owen et al. show that BstA can strongly suppress lytic phage DNA replication, and DefenseFinder catalogs a one-component BstA model.
- DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 phage DNA replication is strongly suppressed by BstA Owen et al. link BstA to strong suppression of phage DNA replication.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/Liste_hmm_system.md BstA__BstA | BstA__BstA | BstA The DefenseFinder HMM inventory records a BstA profile for BstA__BstA in the BstA model namespace.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/DefenseFinder_rules.tsv BstA BstA 1 1 BstA__BstA The DefenseFinder rules table models BstA as a one-component system requiring the BstA__BstA profile.
BstA locus contributes to suppressed encoding-prophage DNA replication RO:0002326
BstA can suppress DNA replication by an aba-sensitive encoding prophage before cognate aba self-immunity rescues replication.
- DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 phage DNA replication is strongly suppressed by BstA, but replication can be rescued by the aba element Owen et al. show that BstA supplies the suppression that the cognate aba element counteracts.
aba self-immunity element prevents suppressed encoding-prophage DNA replication RO:0002212
Owen et al. show that the cognate anti-BstA aba element rescues its encoding prophage's DNA replication from BstA-mediated suppression.
- DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 phage DNA replication is strongly suppressed by BstA, but replication can be rescued by the aba element Owen et al. show that aba counteracts BstA-mediated suppression of phage DNA replication.
- DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 each bstA locus contains a cognate aba element that is inactive against variant BstA proteins Owen et al. show that aba self-immunity is specific to its cognate co-encoded BstA variant.
suppressed lytic phage DNA replication confers BstA system METPO:2007700
BstA-mediated suppression of lytic-phage DNA replication realizes BstA-system abortive-infection defense.
- DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 We propose that BstA protein mediates abortive infection by suppressing phage DNA replication Owen et al. propose phage-DNA-replication suppression as the mechanism by which BstA mediates abortive infection.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md BstA | 10\.1101/2020\.07\.13\.199331 | Prophage-encoded phage defense proteins with cognate self-immunity The DefenseFinder article registry maps the named BstA system to the Owen et al. BstA preprint.
BstA system is a abortive infection system rdfs:subClassOf
BstA system possession is an abortive-infection system trait.
- DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 we propose that BstA is an abortive infection system Owen et al. classify BstA as an abortive-infection system.

Provenance

Identifier source: TraitMech local identifier
Definition source: DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002

Parent traits (1)

abortive infection system traitmech:000214

Synonyms (1)

BstA RELATED_SYNONYM · https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md

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.

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium str. D23580 NCBITaxon:568708 DOI:10.1016/j.chom.2021.09.002 Owen et al. studied BstA in the BTP1 prophage of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium ST313 strain D23580 and showed that BstA mediates defense against Salmonella phage P22.

Discussions and Knowledge Gaps (1)

Open questions attached to this trait. Seeded by just knowledge-gap-scan and curated; see the corpus-wide index.

Resolve the direct phage trigger of BstA localization, the direct DNA-replication target, the physical BstA-aba interaction, and the basis of cognate aba specificity before minting narrower BstA-aba mechanism children.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN bsta-mechanism-gap · raised by codex · 2026-09-20

Attached to causal_graphs#bsta_locus_suppresses_phage_dna_replication

Owen et al. and DefenseFinder support BstA as a named abortive-infection system with a BstA HMM profile and a cognate aba self-immunity element, but the direct phage trigger that recruits BstA to phage DNA, the precise target by which BstA suppresses lytic phage DNA replication, the physical interaction between aba DNA and BstA, and the molecular basis of BstA-aba specificity remain unresolved.

Curation history

2026-09-20T04:37:48Z · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex
Minted BstA 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_v178.
2026-09-20T05:13:00Z · ADDRESS_PR_REVIEW · codex
Added a Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium D23580 canonical example and represented the anti-BstA aba element as an explicit graph node with a supported rescue edge after the PR 1111 adversarial review filed issues 1112 and 1113.
2026-09-20T05:25:30Z · ADDRESS_PR_REVIEW · codex
Separated aba self-immunity for the BstA-encoding prophage from BstA-mediated suppression of incoming lytic phage DNA replication after the PR 1111 adversarial review filed issue 1114.
2026-09-20T05:42:00Z · ADDRESS_PR_REVIEW · codex
Added an explicit BstA locus contribution edge to the aba-sensitive encoding-prophage DNA replication suppression node after the PR 1111 adversarial review filed issue 1116.