An Enrichment of CRISPR and Other Defense-Related Features in Marine Sponge-Associated Microbial Metagenomes.

ABSTRACT: Many marine sponges are populated by dense and taxonomically diverse microbial consortia. We employed a metagenomics approach to unravel the differences in the functional gene repertoire among three Mediterranean sponge species, Petrosia ficiformis, Sarcotragus foetidus, Aplysina aerophoba and seawater. Different signatures were observed between sponge and seawater metagenomes with regard to microbial community composition, GC content, and estimated bacterial genome size. Our analysis showed further a pronounced repertoire for defense systems in sponge metagenomes. Specifically, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, restriction modification, DNA phosphorothioation and phage growth limitation systems were enriched in sponge metagenomes. These data suggest that de

SUBMITTER: Horn H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5099237 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature