DUF262 Schlafen system

traitmech:000530 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A phage defense system in which an organism possesses a genome-encoded, DUF262-associated prokaryotic Schlafen nuclease locus.

Trait evidence (3)

DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8
prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases are widespread antiviral effectors that protect bacteria from bacteriophages and are fused to a diverse array of phage-sensing domains.

Perez Taboada et al. support bacterial prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases as antiviral effectors fused to phage-sensing domains.
DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8
We expressed seven Enterobacterales Schlafen systems in Escherichia coli, identifying two that confer defence against coliphages.

Perez Taboada et al. cloned candidate Enterobacterales Schlafen systems into E. coli and observed coliphage defense for two of them.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
| DUF262_Shlafen | 10\.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 | Bacterial Schlafen proteins mediate phage defence |

The pinned DefenseFinder article registry maps the DUF262_Shlafen source key to the Perez Taboada et al. Schlafen phage-defense paper.

DUF262 Schlafen loci support Schlafen phage defense

Conservative system-level sketch linking a DUF262_Schlafen locus to prokaryotic Schlafen nuclease antiviral activity and the phage-defense parent.

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures the DefenseFinder DUF262_Shlafen article namespace at system level and deliberately leaves the exact locus architecture, the DUF262-associated domain boundary, accession-level protein examples, native host exemplars, phage trigger breadth, and DefenseFinder HMM/rules profiles unresolved.

Edge evidence

DUF262 Schlafen locus contributes to Schlafen antiviral activity RO:0002326
DUF262_Schlafen loci are part of the bacterial prokaryotic Schlafen nuclease phage-defense family.
- DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases are widespread antiviral effectors that protect bacteria from bacteriophages and are fused to a diverse array of phage-sensing domains. Perez Taboada et al. support bacterial prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases as antiviral effectors fused to phage-sensing domains.
Schlafen antiviral activity confers DUF262 Schlafen system METPO:2007700
Prokaryotic Schlafen antiviral effector activity realizes the organism-level DUF262 Schlafen system trait.
- DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases are widespread antiviral effectors that protect bacteria from bacteriophages and are fused to a diverse array of phage-sensing domains. Perez Taboada et al. support bacterial prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases as antiviral effectors fused to phage-sensing domains.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md | DUF262_Shlafen | 10\.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 | Bacterial Schlafen proteins mediate phage defence | The pinned DefenseFinder article registry maps the DUF262_Shlafen source key to the Perez Taboada et al. Schlafen phage-defense paper.
DUF262 Schlafen system is a phage defense system rdfs:subClassOf
DUF262 Schlafen system possession is a phage-defense-system trait.
- DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 We expressed seven Enterobacterales Schlafen systems in Escherichia coli, identifying two that confer defence against coliphages. Perez Taboada et al. cloned candidate Enterobacterales Schlafen systems into E. coli and observed coliphage defense for two of them.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md | DUF262_Shlafen | 10\.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 | Bacterial Schlafen proteins mediate phage defence | The pinned DefenseFinder article registry maps the DUF262_Shlafen source key to the Perez Taboada et al. Schlafen phage-defense paper.

Provenance

Identifier source: TraitMech local identifier
Definition source: DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8

Parent traits (1)

phage defense system traitmech:000209

Synonyms (1)

DUF262_Shlafen 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.

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 exact DUF262_Schlafen locus architecture, DUF262-associated domain boundaries, natural host exemplars, phage trigger breadth, and DefenseFinder HMM/rules coverage before minting narrower DUF262 Schlafen mechanism or component traits.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN duf262-schlafen-defensefinder-profile-gap · raised by codex · 2026-10-02

Attached to causal_graphs#duf262_schlafen_phage_defense

Perez Taboada et al. support prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases as widespread antiviral effectors fused to phage-sensing domains, and the pinned DefenseFinder article registry maps the DUF262_Shlafen key to the same article. The pinned HMM inventory and rules table have no exact DUF262_Schlafen or DUF262 rows for this source key. This first-pass record therefore does not resolve whether the exact DUF262_Schlafen architecture is a single-protein fusion or multi-gene locus, its exact DUF262-associated domain boundaries, natural host exemplars, accession-level Schlafen proteins, full phage trigger breadth, or a reusable DefenseFinder profile model.

Evidence

DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8
prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases are widespread antiviral effectors that protect bacteria from bacteriophages and are fused to a diverse array of phage-sensing domains.
DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8
We expressed seven Enterobacterales Schlafen systems in Escherichia coli, identifying two that confer defence against coliphages.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
| DUF262_Shlafen | 10\.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 | Bacterial Schlafen proteins mediate phage defence |
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/Liste_hmm_system.md
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/DefenseFinder_rules.tsv

Curation history

2026-10-02T01:00:00Z · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex
Minted DUF262 Schlafen system as a DOI- and DefenseFinder-backed GENOMICS TraitRecord under the phage defense system parent after an ignored-and-hidden duplicate review found no exact live TraitMech, METPO, history, or prior proposal record; the replacement placeholder is reserved in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v407.
2026-10-02T01:00:01Z · REVIEW_CANONICAL_EXAMPLE_EVIDENCE_GAP · codex
Reviewed DUF262 Schlafen system during initial curation and left canonical_examples empty because Perez Taboada et al. and the pinned DefenseFinder article registry support the DUF262_Schlafen system namespace, but not an accession-backed native microbial taxon exemplar for the exact DUF262_Schlafen source key. No paid research was used.