Costs of CRISPR-Cas-mediated resistance in Streptococcus thermophilus.

ABSTRACT: CRISPR-Cas is a form of adaptive sequence-specific immunity in microbes. This system offers unique opportunities for the study of coevolution between bacteria and their viral pathogens, bacteriophages. A full understanding of the coevolutionary dynamics of CRISPR-Cas requires knowing the magnitude of the cost of resisting infection. Here, using the gram-positive bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus and its associated virulent phage 2972, a well-established model system harbouring at least two type II functional CRISPR-Cas systems, we obtained different fitness measures based on growth assays in isolation or in pairwise competition. We measured the fitness cost associated with different components of this adaptive immune system: the cost of Cas protein expression, the constitutive cost of i

SUBMITTER: Vale PF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4528535 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature