Prof. Gabriel[Gabi] Kaufmann

Suicidal phage-excluding anticodon nucleases: Bacteria and their viral parasites survive by incessant evolution of defensive measures and countermeasures.  A case in point presents a survival cascade where phage induced neutralization of host DNA restriction turns on a translation disabling anticodon nuclease (PrrC) that has the potential to abort the infection but is counteracted phage tRNA repair proteins.  A more sophisticated host anticodon nuclease (RloC) disrupts its tRNA target beyond repair but may succumb to a phage encoded tRNA decoy.  RloC’s other salient feature is its regulation by an internal, DNA break responsive switch.  This enables the activation of RloC’s ACNase by phages that degrade their host DNA.  Whether RloC benefits its bacterial host also under genotoxic stress is an open question.  We investigate the structure-function relationships and regulation of the two anticodon nucleases and explore the possible application of one of them as a means to protect useful bacteria from phage infecion

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Full publication list

Krutkina,E., Klaiman,D., Margalit,T., Jerabek-Willemsen,M. and Kaufmann,G. (2016). Dual nucleotide specificity determinants of an infection aborting anticodon nuclease.  Virology, . In press.

Bitton,L., Klaiman,D. and Kaufmann,G. (2015).  Phage T4-induced DNA breaks activate a tRNA repair-defying anticodon nuclease. Mol. Microbiol., 97, 898-910.

Klaiman,D., Steinfels-Kohn,E., and Kaufmann,G. A DNA break inducer activates the anticodon nuclease RloC and the adaptive immunity in Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1. (2014) Nuceic Acids Res.  42, 328-339.

Klaiman, D., Steinfels-Kohn, E., Krutkina, K., Davidov, E., and Kaufmann, G. (2012). The wobble nucleotide excising anticodon nuclease RloC is governed by the zinc hook and DNA-dependent ATPase of its Rad50-like domain. Nuceic Acids Res. 40, 8568-8578.

Klaiman,D. and Kaufmann,G. (2011). Phage T4-induced dTTP accretion bolsters a tRNase-based host defense. Virol. 414, 97-101.

Kaufmann,G., Davidov,E., Steinfels-Kohn,E., Krutkina,K., Klaiman,D., Margalit,T., Chai-Danino,M., and Kotlyar,A. (2011). RloC: a Translation-Disabling tRNase Implicated in Phage Exclusion during Recovery from DNA Damage. In DNA repair I.Kruman, ed. InTech Open Access Publisher Rijeka, Croatia. pp 21-44.

Davidov,E. and Kaufmann,G. (2008). RloC: a wobble nucleotide-excising and zinc-responsive bacterial tRNase. Mol. Microbiol. 69, 1560-1574.