Search for Origins of Anti-CRISPR Proteins by Structure Comparison.

ABSTRACT: Many bacterial and archaeal viruses encode anti-CRISPR proteins (Acrs) that specifically inhibit CRISPR-Cas systems via various mechanisms. The majority of the Acrs are small, non-enzymatic proteins that abrogate CRISPR activity by binding to Cas effector proteins. The Acrs evolve fast, due to the arms race with the respective CRISPR-Cas systems, which hampers the elucidation of their evolutionary origins by sequence comparison. We performed comprehensive structural modeling using AlphaFold2 for 3693 experimentally characterized and predicted Acrs, followed by a comparison to the protein structures in the Protein Data Bank database. After clustering the Acrs by sequence similarity, 363 high-quality structural models were obtained that accounted for 102 Acr families. Structure comparisons a

SUBMITTER: Sahakyan H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10285414 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature