title: An Enrichment of CRISPR and Other Defense-Related Features in Marine Sponge-Associated Microbial Metagenomes.
abstract: Many marine sponges are populated by dense and taxonomically diverse microbial consortia. We employed a metagenomics approach to unravel the differences in the functional gene repertoire among three Mediterranean sponge species,Petrosia ficiformis, Sarcotragus foetidus, Aplysina aerophobaand seawater. Different signatures were observed between sponge and seawater metagenomes with regard to microbial community composition, GC content, and estimated bacterial genome size. Our analysis showed further a pronounced repertoire for defense systems in sponge metagenomes. Specifically, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, restriction modification, DNA phosphorothioation and phage growth limitation systems were enriched in sponge metagenomes. These data suggest that defense is an important functional trait for an existence within sponges that requires mechanisms to defend against foreign DNA from microorganisms and viruses. This study contributes to an understanding of the evolutionary arms race between viruses/phages and bacterial genomes and it sheds light on the bacterial defenses that have evolved in the context of the sponge holobiont.
authors.affiliation: RD3 Marine Microbiology, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean ResearchKiel, Germany; Department of Botany II, Julius-von-Sachs Institute for Biological Sciences, University of WürzburgWürzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Horn
authors.affiliation: RD3 Marine Microbiology, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean ResearchKiel, Germany; Department of Botany II, Julius-von-Sachs Institute for Biological Sciences, University of WürzburgWürzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Beate M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Slaby
authors.affiliation: RD3 Marine Microbiology, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean ResearchKiel, Germany; Department of Botany II, Julius-von-Sachs Institute for Biological Sciences, University of WürzburgWürzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Jahn
authors.affiliation: RD3 Marine Microbiology, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany.
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bayer
authors.affiliation: School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation and School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Lucas
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moitinho-Silva
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics, University of WürzburgWürzburg, Germany; Center for Computational and Theoretical Biology, University of WürzburgWürzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Förster
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany II, Julius-von-Sachs Institute for Biological Sciences, University of WürzburgWürzburg, Germany; Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Minia UniversityMinia, Egypt.
authors.forename: Usama R
authors.initials: UR
authors.lastname: Abdelmohsen
authors.affiliation: RD3 Marine Microbiology, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean ResearchKiel, Germany; Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu KielKiel, Germany.
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Hentschel
keywords: CRISPR; defense; metagenomes; restriction modification; seawater; sponge microbiome