Endoribonuclease toxin-antitoxin systems in bacteria : targets and growth inhibition

Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are widely-distributed genetic modules that can reversibly inhibit the host bacteria's growth. Both toxin and antitoxin are encoded together on an operon and the antitoxin directly binds the toxin, preventing its activity. Under stressful conditions, the antitoxin may be degraded, allowing the toxin to inhibit growth. Bacteria often encode many copies of these mysterious systems and they have been suggested to play a role in a myriad of processes including plasmid maintenance, survival through antibiotic stress, growth regulation, and defense against bacteriophage. However, how TA systems might accomplish these diverse feats is not well understood. The toxic element of many of these systems is an endoribonuclease. In this work, I characterize the RNA targets of 9 endoribonuclease toxins encoded by the bacterium Escherichia coli.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Culviner, Peter Holmes.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael T. Laub.

• Biology.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123702

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123702