Expanding the catalog of cas genes with metagenomes.

ABSTRACT: The CRISPR (clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas adaptive immune system is an important defense system in bacteria, providing targeted defense against invasions of foreign nucleic acids. CRISPR-Cas systems consist of CRISPR loci and cas (CRISPR-associated) genes: sequence segments of invaders are incorporated into host genomes at CRISPR loci to generate specificity, while adjacent cas genes encode proteins that mediate the defense process. We pursued an integrated approach to identifying putative cas genes from genomes and metagenomes, combining similarity searches with genomic neighborhood analysis. Application of our approach to bacterial genomes and human microbiome datasets allowed us to significantly expand the collection of cas genes: the sequence space of

SUBMITTER: Zhang Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3936711 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature