Abstract
CRISPR-Cas immune systems in bacteria and archaea protect against viral infection, which has spurred viruses to develop dedicated inhibitors of these systems called anti-CRISPRs (Acrs). Like most host-virus arms races, many diverse examples of these immune and counter-immune proteins are encoded by the genomes of bacteria, archaea, and their viruses. For the case of Acrs, it is almost certain that just a small minority of nature's true diversity has been described. In this review, I discuss the various approaches used to identify these Acrs and speculate on the future for Acr discovery. Because Acrs can determine infection outcomes in nature and regulate CRISPR-Cas activities in applied settings, they have a dual importance to both host-virus conflicts and emerging biotechnologies. Thus, revealing the largely hidden world of Acrs should provide important lessons in microbiology that have the potential to ripple far beyond the field.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 167952 |
Journal | Journal of Molecular Biology |
Volume | 435 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 1 2023 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- CRISPR-Cas
- anti-CRISPRs
- bacterial defense systems
- bacteriophage
- microbial arms race
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biophysics
- Structural Biology
- Molecular Biology