Evolutionary conservation of sequence and secondary structures in CRISPR repeats.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPRs) are a novel class of direct repeats, separated by unique spacer sequences of similar length, that are present in approximately 40% of bacterial and most archaeal genomes analyzed to date. More than 40 gene families, called CRISPR-associated sequences (CASs), appear in conjunction with these repeats and are thought to be involved in the propagation and functioning of CRISPRs. It has been recently shown that CRISPR provides acquired resistance against viruses in prokaryotes.

Results

Here we analyze CRISPR repeats identified in 195 microbial genomes and show that they can be organized into multiple clusters based on sequence similarity. Some of the clusters present stable, highly conserved RNA second

SUBMITTER: Kunin V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1896005 | biostudies-literature | 2007

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature