Diversification of molecular pattern recognition in bacterial NLR-like proteins

Antiviral STANDs (Avs) are bacterial anti-phage proteins evolutionarily related to immune pattern recognition receptors of the NLR family. Type 2 Avs proteins (Avs2) were suggested to recognize the phage large terminase subunit as a signature of phage infection. Here, we show that Avs2 from Klebsiella pneumoniae (KpAvs2) can recognize several different phage proteins as signature for infection. While KpAvs2 recognizes the large terminase subunit of Seuratvirus phages, we find that to protect against Dhillonvirus phages, KpAvs2 recognizes a different phage protein named KpAvs2-stimulating protein 1 (Ksap1). KpAvs2 directly binds Ksap1 to become activated, and phages mutated in Ksap1 escape KpAvs2 defense despite encoding an intact terminase. We further show that KpAvs2 protects against a third group of phages by recognizing another protein, Ksap2. Our results exemplify the evolutionary diversification of molecular pattern recognition in bacterial Avs2, and show that a single pattern recognition receptor evolved to recognize different phage-encoded proteins. Avs proteins are bacterial anti-phage pattern recognition receptors evolutionarily related to eukaryotic NLRs. Here, Béchon et al show that a single bacterial Avs can recognize different phage proteins as a signature for infection, explaining the broad defensive range of Avs proteins.