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Ig-like Schlafen system

traitmech:000508 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A phage defense system in which an organism possesses a genome-encoded prokaryotic Schlafen nuclease fused to an immunoglobulin-like sensor domain that recognizes T5-like phage tail assembly chaperones and activates Schlafen tRNase defense.

Trait evidence (5)

  • 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
    Schlafen nuclease is fused to a previously unknown immunoglobulin-like sensor domain and demonstrated that it recognizes tail assembly chaperones of T5-like phages.

    Perez Taboada et al. support Ig-like domain fusion and T5-like tail assembly chaperone recognition by an Ig-like prokaryotic Schlafen system.

  • 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.

  • DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8
    Upon activation, the Schlafen nuclease cleaves both E. coli and phage-encoded tRNAs and restricts T5 phage by reducing its burst size.

    Perez Taboada et al. connect activation of an Ig-like RorSlfn5 nuclease to bacterial and phage tRNA cleavage and T5 burst-size reduction.

  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
    | Shlafen_Ig-like | 10\.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 | Bacterial Schlafen proteins mediate phage defence |

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

Ig-like Schlafen systems cleave tRNAs after phage sensing

Conservative system-level sketch linking an Ig-like prokaryotic Schlafen locus to T5-like tail assembly chaperone sensing, Schlafen nuclease-dependent tRNA cleavage, and the Ig-like Schlafen phage-defense trait.

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures the Ig-like prokaryotic Schlafen DefenseFinder article namespace at system level and deliberately defers a protein-resolved RorSlfn5 mechanism. Perez Taboada et al. support an Ig-like Schlafen nuclease system that recognizes T5-like phage tail assembly chaperones and cleaves bacterial and phage tRNAs, but exact profile boundaries, natural host exemplars, phage trigger breadth, and DefenseFinder HMM/rules profiles are unresolved.

Ig-like Schlafen systems cleave tRNAs after phage sensing Interactive directed graph showing evidence-backed causal relationships for Ig-like Schlafen system.

Edge evidence

  • Ig-like Schlafen locus contributes to T5-like tail chaperone sensing RO:0002326

    Ig-like Schlafen loci encode a Schlafen nuclease fused to an Ig-like sensor domain that recognizes T5-like phage tail assembly chaperones.

  • T5-like tail chaperone sensing activates Schlafen tRNA cleavage RO:0002213

    Phage-triggered activation of the Ig-like Schlafen nuclease leads to bacterial and phage tRNA cleavage.

    • DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 Schlafen nuclease is fused to a previously unknown immunoglobulin-like sensor domain and demonstrated that it recognizes tail assembly chaperones of T5-like phages. Perez Taboada et al. support Ig-like domain fusion and T5-like tail assembly chaperone recognition by an Ig-like prokaryotic Schlafen system.
    • DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 Upon activation, the Schlafen nuclease cleaves both E. coli and phage-encoded tRNAs and restricts T5 phage by reducing its burst size. Perez Taboada et al. connect activation of an Ig-like RorSlfn5 nuclease to bacterial and phage tRNA cleavage and T5 burst-size reduction.
  • Schlafen tRNA cleavage confers Ig-like Schlafen system METPO:2007700

    Schlafen tRNase activity restricts T5 phage and realizes the organism-level Ig-like 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.
    • DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8 Upon activation, the Schlafen nuclease cleaves both E. coli and phage-encoded tRNAs and restricts T5 phage by reducing its burst size. Perez Taboada et al. connect activation of an Ig-like RorSlfn5 nuclease to bacterial and phage tRNA cleavage and T5 burst-size reduction.
  • Ig-like Schlafen system is a phage defense system rdfs:subClassOf

    Ig-like Schlafen system possession is a phage-defense-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.
    • 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.

Provenance

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

Parent traits (1)

Synonyms (2)

  • Shlafen_Ig-like RELATED_SYNONYM · https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
  • pSlfn5 RELATED_SYNONYM · DOI:10.1038/s41564-026-02277-8

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 pSlfn5 family boundaries, natural host exemplars, T5-like tail chaperone trigger breadth, and DefenseFinder HMM/rules coverage before minting narrower Ig-like Schlafen mechanism or component traits.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN ig-like-schlafen-defensefinder-profile-gap · raised by codex · 2026-10-01

Attached to causal_graphs#ig_like_schlafen_trna_cleavage

Perez Taboada et al. support prokaryotic Schlafen nucleases as widespread antiviral effectors and experimentally characterize the Ig-like RorSlfn5 nuclease as a T5-like tail chaperone-triggered tRNase, and the pinned DefenseFinder article registry maps the Shlafen_Ig-like key to the same article. The pinned HMM inventory and rules table have no exact Schlafen rows. This first-pass record therefore does not resolve exact pSlfn5 family boundaries, natural host exemplars, accession-level Schlafen proteins, full phage trigger breadth, or a reusable DefenseFinder profile model.

Evidence

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Minted Ig-like 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_v385.

  2. · REVIEW_CANONICAL_EXAMPLE_EVIDENCE_GAP · codex

    Reviewed Ig-like Schlafen system during initial curation and left canonical_examples empty because Perez Taboada et al. support RorSlfn5 from Raoultella ornithinolytica, but an NCBI Taxonomy lookup for that current name did not resolve during first-pass curation. No paid research was used.