DarTG is a novel toxin-antitoxin system that catalyses the reversible ADP-ribosylation of DNA

The discovery and study of toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems helps us advance our understanding of the strategies prokaryotes employ to regulate cellular processes related to the general stress response, such as defense against phages, growth control, biofilm formation, persistence and programmed cell death. Here we identify and characterise a TA system found in various bacteria, including the global pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the thermophilic Thermus aquaticus (Taq). The toxin of the system (DarT) is a domain of unknown function (DUF) 4433, and the antitoxin (DarG) a macrodomain protein. We demonstrate that DarT is an enzyme that specifically modifies thymidines on single-stranded DNA in a sequence-specific manner by a nucleotide-type modification called ADP-ribosylation. We also show that this modification can be removed by DarG. Our results provide an example of reversible DNA ADPribosylation, and we anticipate potential therapeutic benefits by targeting this enzyme-enzyme TA system in bacterial pathogens such as M. tuberculosis