Epona system

traitmech:000281 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A phage defense system in which an organism possesses an Epona locus represented by a VCA0366 profile that can protect bacteria from bacteriophage infection.

Trait evidence (4)

DOI:10.1126/science.ads0768
nearly 10% of the integron cassettes in the pandemic Vibrio cholerae strain encode novel antiphage functions

Darracq et al. support treating the newly discovered Vibrio cholerae SCI antiphage cassettes as bacterial anti-phage systems.
DOI:10.1126/science.ads0768
Most of these novel systems have little or no similarity to previously known ones, with several providing defense through cell lysis or growth arrest

Darracq et al. support a conservative system record that does not assert a resolved Epona trigger, effector output, or universal pathway.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
Epona | 10\.1126/science\.ads0768 | Sedentary chromosomal integrons as biobanks of bacterial antiphage defense systems

The DefenseFinder model registry maps the named Epona system to the Darracq et al. SCI antiphage-system paper.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/Liste_hmm_system.md
Epona__VCA0366 | | Epona

The DefenseFinder HMM inventory records VCA0366 in the Epona model namespace.

Epona loci confer bacterial phage defense

Conservative system-level sketch linking possession of an Epona locus to restricted bacteriophage propagation without asserting the unresolved phage trigger or molecular output.

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures Epona as a named SCI-derived anti-phage system with a VCA0366 DefenseFinder profile while leaving its phage trigger, molecular substrate, antiviral effector output, and subtype breadth unresolved.

Edge evidence

Epona locus contributes to restricted phage propagation RO:0002326
DefenseFinder maps Epona to an SCI anti-phage-system discovery paper and represents Epona loci through the VCA0366 component profile.
- DOI:10.1126/science.ads0768 nearly 10% of the integron cassettes in the pandemic Vibrio cholerae strain encode novel antiphage functions Darracq et al. describe the newly discovered antiphage-system cohort that the DefenseFinder Epona registry row maps to the Epona system.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/Liste_hmm_system.md Epona__VCA0366 | | Epona The DefenseFinder HMM inventory supports VCA0366 as the Epona component profile.
restricted phage propagation confers Epona system METPO:2007700
Epona-mediated phage restriction realizes the Epona system trait.
- DOI:10.1126/science.ads0768 Most of these novel systems have little or no similarity to previously known ones Darracq et al. place the Epona discovery cohort in a set of novel bacterial systems that protect against phages.
Epona system is a phage defense system rdfs:subClassOf
Epona system possession is a phage-defense-system trait.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md Epona | 10\.1126/science\.ads0768 | Sedentary chromosomal integrons as biobanks of bacterial antiphage defense systems DefenseFinder associates Epona with the Darracq et al. bacterial antiphage-system paper.

Provenance

Identifier source: TraitMech local identifier
Definition source: DOI:10.1126/science.ads0768

Parent traits (1)

phage defense system traitmech:000209

Synonyms (2)

Epona EXACT_SYNONYM · https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
VCA0366 RELATED_SYNONYM · https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/Liste_hmm_system.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 Epona phage triggers and effector outputs before minting narrower Epona mechanism children.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN epona-mechanism-gap · raised by codex · 2026-09-19

Attached to causal_graphs#epona_locus_restricts_phage

Darracq et al. and DefenseFinder support Epona as a named anti-phage system with a VCA0366 profile, but the trigger, molecular substrate, antiviral effector output, and subtype-specific mechanism are not resolved enough here to assert a narrower mechanistic child trait.

Curation history

2026-09-19T14:03:55Z · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex
Minted Epona system as a DOI-backed GENOMICS TraitRecord under phage defense system 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_v158.