ParST is a widespread toxin-antitoxin module that targets nucleotide metabolism. Author Frank Piscotta, Philip Jeffrey, A James Link Publication Year 2019 Type Journal Article Abstract Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems interfere with essential cellular processes and are implicated in bacterial lifestyle adaptations such as persistence and the biofilm formation. Here, we present structural, biochemical, and functional data on an uncharacterized TA system, the COG5654-COG5642 pair. Bioinformatic analysis showed that this TA pair is found in 2,942 of the 16,286 distinct bacterial species in the RefSeq database. We solved a structure of the toxin bound to a fragment of the antitoxin to 1.50 Å. This structure suggested that the toxin is a mono-ADP-ribosyltransferase (mART). The toxin specifically modifies phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate synthetase (Prs), an essential enzyme in nucleotide biosynthesis conserved in all organisms. We propose renaming the toxin ParT for Prs ADP-ribosylating toxin and ParS for the cognate antitoxin. ParT is a unique example of an intracellular protein mART in bacteria and is the smallest known mART. This work demonstrates that TA systems can induce bacteriostasis through interference with nucleotide biosynthesis. Keywords Escherichia coli, Nucleotides, Amino Acid Sequence, ADP Ribose Transferases, Crystallography, Ribose-Phosphate Pyrophosphokinase, Sphingomonadaceae, Toxin-Antitoxin Systems Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Volume 116 Issue 3 Pages 826-834 Date Published 2019 Jan 15 ISSN Number 1091-6490 DOI 10.1073/pnas.1814633116 Alternate Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A PMCID PMC6338849 PMID 30598453 PubMedPubMed CentralGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML