Publication Date:
2008-12-20
Description:
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in bacteria and archaea occurs through phage transduction, transformation, or conjugation, and the latter is particularly important for the spread of antibiotic resistance. Clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) loci confer sequence-directed immunity against phages. A clinical isolate of Staphylococcus epidermidis harbors a CRISPR spacer that matches the nickase gene present in nearly all staphylococcal conjugative plasmids. Here we show that CRISPR interference prevents conjugation and plasmid transformation in S. epidermidis. Insertion of a self-splicing intron into nickase blocks interference despite the reconstitution of the target sequence in the spliced mRNA, which indicates that the interference machinery targets DNA directly. We conclude that CRISPR loci counteract multiple routes of HGT and can limit the spread of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695655/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695655/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Marraffini, Luciano A -- Sontheimer, Erik J -- GM072830/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM072830/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM072830-04/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2008 Dec 19;322(5909):1843-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1165771.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, Northwestern University, 2205 Tech Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19095942" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Base Sequence
;
*Conjugation, Genetic
;
DNA, Bacterial/*genetics/metabolism
;
Deoxyribonuclease I/genetics/metabolism
;
*Gene Silencing
;
*Gene Transfer, Horizontal
;
Plasmids/genetics
;
RNA Splicing
;
RNA, Bacterial/*genetics/metabolism
;
Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid/*genetics
;
Staphylococcus Phages/genetics
;
Staphylococcus aureus/genetics
;
Staphylococcus epidermidis/*genetics
;
*Transformation, Bacterial
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
