AbiI is a single gene defense system discovered in *Lactococcus lactis* in 1997 :ref{doi=10.1016/S0168-1656(97)01692-1}.
AbiI is one of the so-called "Abi" systems for "Abortive infection" discovered in the 90's in research related to the dairy industry :ref{doi=10.1016/j.mib.2005.06.006}. Even though, their name corresponds to an abortive infection, their mechanism of action does not necessarily correspond to an abortive infection. AbiI is classified as an abortive infection in :ref{doi=10.1016/j.mib.2023.102312}.
## Molecular mechanism
As far as we are aware, the molecular mechanism is unknown.