CRISPR provides acquired resistance against viruses in prokaryotes.
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are a distinctive feature of the genomes of most Bacteria and Archaea and are thought to be involved in resistance to bacteriophages. We found that, after viral challenge, bacteria integrated new spacers derived from phage genomic sequences. Removal or addition of particular spacers modified the phage-resistance phenotype of the cell. Thus, CRISPR, together with associated cas genes, provided resistance against phages, and resistance specificity is determined by spacer-phage sequence similarity.
Barrangou
Rodolphe
R
Danisco USA Inc., 3329 Agriculture Drive, Madison, WI 53716, USA.
Fremaux
Christophe
C
Deveau
Hélène
H
Richards
Melissa
M
Boyaval
Patrick
P
Moineau
Sylvain
S
Romero
Dennis A
DA
Horvath
Philippe
P
D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D021901:DNA, Intergenic / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D016679:Genome, Viral; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D017108:Streptococcus Phages / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D048249:Streptococcus thermophilus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000821:virology*; D010948:Viral Plaque Assay; D014779:Virus Replication
D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D021901:DNA, Intergenic