Dr. Tanita Wein, Weizmann Institute

Tanita Wein from the Evolutionary Immunology Group, Weizmann Institute, Israel, will give a talk:

Ancient origin of innate immune components in bacteria

“Caspase recruitment domains (CARDs) and pyrin domains are facilitators of inflammatory cell death. Upon pathogen recognition, CARD domains activate caspases, which, in turn, cleave and activate gasdermin pore-forming proteins to induce pyroptotic cell death. We show that CARD domains are present in bacterial anti-phage defense systems, where they are essential for protease-mediated activation of bacterial gasdermins leading to cell death. We further show that multiple bacterial anti-phage defense systems utilize CARD domains to activate a variety of cell death effectors. We find that these systems are triggered by an immune evasion protein that phages use to overcome the bacterial defense system RexAB, demonstrating that phage proteins inhibiting one defense system can activate another. Our results suggest that CARD domains are an ancient component of innate immune systems conserved from bacteria to humans, and that CARD-dependent activation of gasdermins is conserved in organisms across the tree of life.”

Host

Prof. Dagan