Dense microbial communities, like the gut and soil microbiomes, are dynamic societies. Bacteria can navigate these environments by deploying proteins that alter foreign cells’ behavior, such as interbacterial effectors. Current models suggest that adjacent sibling cells are protected by an immunity protein, as compared to toxin-antitoxin systems that act only within the effector-producing cell. A prevailing hypothesis is that immunity proteins binding to specific (cognate) protein partners ...
