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Rhea system

traitmech:000311 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A phage defense system in which an organism possesses a Rhea locus that can restrict bacteriophage infection.

Trait evidence (3)

  • DOI:10.1093/nar/gkae671
    These systems were named after cheese, cattle or fermentation related deities (Rhea, Aristaios, Kamadhenu, Fliodhais, Audmula, Rugutis and Hesat)

    Grafakou et al. named Rhea among seven not previously described lactococcal antiphage systems.

  • DOI:10.1073/pnas.2426508122
    we isolated 66 phage escape mutants which had become insensitive to 13 distinct, plasmid-encoded lactococcal phage resistance systems (i.e. Rhea, Kamadhenu, Rugutis, Audmula, PARIS, type II CBASS, Septu, AbiA, AbiB, AbiD/F, AbiG, AbiJ, AbiP)

    Mosterd et al. later included Rhea among the distinct plasmid-encoded lactococcal phage-resistance systems investigated by phage escape-mutant isolation.

  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md
    Rhea | 10\.1093/nar/gkae671 | Discovery of antiphage systems in the lactococcal plasmidome

    The DefenseFinder article registry maps the named Rhea system to the Grafakou et al. lactococcal antiphage-system discovery paper.

Rhea loci confer bacterial phage defense

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

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures Rhea as a named lactococcal anti-phage system while leaving its direct phage trigger, molecular substrate, antiviral effector output, natural locus breadth, and the absence of pinned DefenseFinder HMM or rule rows unresolved.

Rhea loci confer bacterial phage defense Interactive directed graph showing evidence-backed causal relationships for Rhea system.

Edge evidence

  • Rhea locus contributes to restricted phage propagation RO:0002326

    The lactococcal plasmidome screen discovered Rhea as a named antiphage system, and the DefenseFinder article registry maps the Rhea system to that discovery paper.

    • DOI:10.1093/nar/gkae671 These systems were named after cheese, cattle or fermentation related deities (Rhea, Aristaios, Kamadhenu, Fliodhais, Audmula, Rugutis and Hesat) Grafakou et al. named Rhea as one of the novel lactococcal antiphage systems.
    • DOI:10.1073/pnas.2426508122 we isolated 66 phage escape mutants which had become insensitive to 13 distinct, plasmid-encoded lactococcal phage resistance systems (i.e. Rhea, Kamadhenu, Rugutis, Audmula, PARIS, type II CBASS, Septu, AbiA, AbiB, AbiD/F, AbiG, AbiJ, AbiP) Mosterd et al. treat Rhea as a plasmid-encoded lactococcal phage-resistance system in their escape-mutant screen.
    • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdmparis/defense-finder-models/afb0e5a8b466be53586b13266f5d38d98c3ac268/List_system_article.md Rhea | 10\.1093/nar/gkae671 | Discovery of antiphage systems in the lactococcal plasmidome The DefenseFinder article registry maps the named Rhea system to the Grafakou et al. lactococcal antiphage-system discovery paper.
  • restricted phage propagation confers Rhea system METPO:2007700

    Rhea-mediated phage restriction realizes the Rhea system trait.

    • DOI:10.1073/pnas.2426508122 we isolated 66 phage escape mutants which had become insensitive to 13 distinct, plasmid-encoded lactococcal phage resistance systems (i.e. Rhea, Kamadhenu, Rugutis, Audmula, PARIS, type II CBASS, Septu, AbiA, AbiB, AbiD/F, AbiG, AbiJ, AbiP) Mosterd et al. treat Rhea as a plasmid-encoded lactococcal phage-resistance system in their escape-mutant screen.
  • Rhea system is a phage defense system rdfs:subClassOf

    Rhea system possession is a phage-defense-system trait.

Provenance

Identifier source
TraitMech local identifier
Definition source
DOI:10.1093/nar/gkae671

Parent traits (1)

Synonyms (1)

  • Rhea EXACT_SYNONYM · DOI:10.1093/nar/gkae671

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 Rhea phage triggers and effector outputs before minting narrower Rhea mechanism children.

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

Attached to causal_graphs#rhea_locus_restricts_phage

Grafakou et al., Mosterd et al., and DefenseFinder support Rhea as a named anti-phage system, but the direct trigger, molecular substrate, antiviral effector output, natural locus breadth, and profile-to-component model are not resolved enough here to assert a narrower mechanistic child trait.

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Minted Rhea system as a DOI-backed GENOMICS TraitRecord under phage defense system 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_v188.