★ Why we care
Direct link to human SMCs (condensin, cohesin), which are massively dysregulated in cancers. The simpler bacterial mechanism provides a model system for understanding how to activate/inhibit these complexes for anti-cancer purposes.
✦ Bactaegion collective mission○ local·0/ 478 206candidate families touched·0therapeutic hypotheses posted·0annotations completed
Canonical sources
Bactaegion does not duplicate any scientific data. Everything comes from public databases.
★ Curated sources
🔍 Search public databases
Protein domains
📚 Reference bibliography
Doron S. et al., Systematic discovery of antiphage defense systems in the microbial pangenome, Science 359 (2018). doi:10.1126/science.aar4120
Wilkinson M. et al., Cryo-EM structure of the Lamassu anti-phage immune effector, Nature 638 (2024).
★ Princeps publication
Doron S, Melamed S, Ofir G et al. (2018). Systematic discovery of antiphage defense systems in the microbial pangenome. Science.
1-16 · common · series 2026/2
Lamassu
SMC-family antiphage defense
The system that inherits its name from the Assyrian human-headed guardian spirits.
Couple ATPase de la famille SMC (LmuA) + effecteur variable (LmuB). Détection des topologies inhabituelles d'acides nucléiques viraux, suivie de mort cellulaire abortive. Famille répandue mais mécanismes fins encore en investigation.
- Proteins
- 412
- Host
- bactéries
- Discovery
- Doron S., 2018
- Mechanism
- ATPase SMC + effecteur
Also documented in the V1 library see the full entry →
✦ The story
The Lamassu were tutelary deities of Mesopotamia: spirits with the body of a winged bull and a human head, posted at palace gates to ward off demons. The Lamassu anti-phage system does the same: posted at the genome's entrance, it detects abnormal nucleic acid topologies injected by the phage and triggers abortive death. Its catalytic core is an SMC-family ATPase — the same family that in humans forms condensins (chromosome compaction during mitosis) and cohesins (sister chromatid cohesion). Remarkable evolutionary conservation: the same machinery that packages your genome is, in the bacterium, recycled into an antiviral sentinel.
Discovered 2018
By Doron, Melamed, Ofir et al. (Weizmann Institute) — cryo-EM characterization Wilkinson et al. 2024 (Nature)
◇ The detail that lands
In mythology, Lamassu protected kings by watching all directions at once. The bacterial SMC ATPase does exactly that topologically: it continuously scans DNA topology to detect non-canonical novelties. The name is as evocative as the old Hippocratic names are in medicine.
Sources
- Doron S. et al., Systematic discovery of antiphage defense systems in the microbial pangenome, Science 359 (2018). doi:10.1126/science.aar4120
- Wilkinson M. et al., Cryo-EM structure of the Lamassu anti-phage immune effector, Nature 638 (2024).
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