News Finding: The team now has evidence that bacteria in the gut microbiome contain dADG, as well as another bacterial DNA modification that they discovered called phosphorothioates, and they are looking to see if they play any role in human health and disease.
Paper Finding: In 98% of the bacteria analyzed, the tgtA5 genes also clustered with several other putative DNA-binding enzymes, including a member of the DEAD/DEAH box helicase family, a SNF2-type helicase, and a RecQ-like Superfamily II DNA helicase ( Fig.
News Context: "There probably aren't a huge number, but we could go look for more in humans." The team now has evidence that bacteria in the gut microbiome contain dADG, as well as another bacterial DNA modification that they discovered called phosphorothioates, and they are looking to see if they play any role in human health and disease. Any new modifications discovered could also become useful antibiotic targets, especially those that prevent restriction enzymes from chopping up the bacteria's own DNA.
Paper Context: DpdC was predicted to encode a DUF328 domain-containing protein, and DpdD has little similarity to any known protein, although a small portion of the C terminus matched a DUF2325 domain (SI Appendix, Fig. In 98% of the bacteria analyzed, the tgtA5 genes also clustered with several other putative DNA-binding enzymes, including a member of the DEAD/DEAH box helicase family, a SNF2-type helicase, and a RecQ-like Superfamily II DNA helicase ( Fig. This grouping allowed us to speculate that TgtA5 is involved in introducing preQ 0 -like modifications in DNA, a hypothesis previously proposed by Aravind and colleagues .