Just like us, bacteria are under constant threat of infection by viruses (called phages). We’ve found that many bacteria are armed with sophisticated viral defence systems powered by reverse transcription. While the mechanisms of these defences are largely mysterious, we recently discovered how one such system works. We found that upon phage infection, a bacterial reverse transcriptase synthesises a toxic repetitive gene from an RNA template. The single infected cell stops growing and thereby saves the entire bacterial population from the virus.
We are now investigating the mechanisms of other reverse transcriptase-based defence systems, to uncover what we expect to be a remarkable diversity of mechanisms that showcase the creativity of evolution.