title: Come Together: CRISPR-Cas Immunity Senses the Quorum.
abstract: In this issue of Molecular Cell, Patterson et al. (2016) reveal a functional link between the CRISPR-Cas and quorum sensing systems, which could allow bacteria to activate the potentially lethal adaptive immunity when they need it most: in high-density cultures, when bacteriophage infections can be most detrimental.
authors.affiliation: Waksman Institute for Microbiology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
authors.forename: Ekaterina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Semenova
authors.affiliation: Waksman Institute for Microbiology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA; Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, 143026 Skolkovo, Russia. Electronic address: severik@waksman.rutgers.edu.
authors.forename: Konstantin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Severinov
mesh_terms: D056704:Adaptive Immunity; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000235:genetics; D064113:CRISPR-Cas Systems; D064112:Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats; D053038:Quorum Sensing