Target motifs affecting natural immunity by a constitutive CRISPR-Cas system in Escherichia coli

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR associated (cas) genes conform the CRISPR-Cas systems of various bacteria and archaea and produce degradation of invading nucleic acids containing sequences (protospacers) that are complementary to repeat intervening space...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-11, Vol.7 (11), p.e50797-e50797
Main Authors: Almendros, Cristóbal, Guzmán, Noemí M, Díez-Villaseñor, César, García-Martínez, Jesús, Mojica, Francisco J M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaea
Arrays
Bacteria
Base Sequence
Biodegradation
Biology
CRISPR
Degradation
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
E coli
Escherichia coli
Escherichia coli - genetics
Escherichia coli - immunology
Escherichia coli Proteins - genetics
Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
Gene Order
Genetic transformation
Genomes
Immune system
Immunity
Interference
Inverted Repeat Sequences
Molecular Sequence Data
Nucleic acids
Nucleotide Motifs
Nucleotide sequence
Nucleotides
Plasmids
Plasmids - genetics
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Pyridine nucleotide reductase
Spacer
Studies
Target recognition
Transformation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR associated (cas) genes conform the CRISPR-Cas systems of various bacteria and archaea and produce degradation of invading nucleic acids containing sequences (protospacers) that are complementary to repeat intervening spacers. It has been demonstrated that the base sequence identity of a protospacer with the cognate spacer and the presence of a protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) influence CRISPR-mediated interference efficiency. By using an original transformation assay with plasmids targeted by a resident spacer here we show that natural CRISPR-mediated immunity against invading DNA occurs in wild type Escherichia coli. Unexpectedly, the strongest activity is observed with protospacer adjoining nucleotides (interference motifs) that differ from the PAM both in sequence and location. Hence, our results document for the first time native CRISPR activity in E. coli and demonstrate that positions next to the PAM in invading DNA influence their recognition and degradation by these prokaryotic immune systems.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0050797