Fig. 1. Phages selectively degrade cyclic nucleotide signals used in host defence.
a, Schematic depicting a screen of cyclic nucleotide degradation activity in phage-infected lysates using thin-layer chromatography (TLC). b, Representative TLC assays depicting cleavage of 3′3′-cGAMP following infection by T2, T4 and T6 phages, or cleavage of cCMP following infection with SBSphiJ phage. Data are representative of at least two independent replicates. Pi, inorganic phosphate; −, buffer only control. c, Summary of the complete results of the screen in b, with four phages closely related to T5 omitted for clarity (see Supplementary Table 1 for complete list of phages). The green shading represents the incubation times indicated in the key. T4-related phages degrade diverse CBASS signals and SBSphiJ-related phages degrade diverse Pycsar signals.