How bacterial cell recognizes its own DNA

It may come as a bit of a surprise to learn that bacteria have an immune system - in their case to fight off invasive viruses called phages. And like any immune system - from single-celled to human - the first challenge of the bacterial immune system is to detect the difference between "foreign" and "self." This is far from simple, as viruses, bacteria and all other living things are made of DNA and proteins. A group of researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Tel Aviv University has now revealed exactly how bacteria do this. Their results were published online today in Nature.

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