Nature Communications (Jan 2018)

Incomplete prophage tolerance by type III-A CRISPR-Cas systems reduces the fitness of lysogenic hosts

  • Gregory W. Goldberg,
  • Elizabeth A. McMillan,
  • Andrew Varble,
  • Joshua W. Modell,
  • Poulami Samai,
  • Wenyan Jiang,
  • Luciano A. Marraffini

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02557-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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CRISPR-Cas systems, such as type III-A CRISPR-Cas, provide an immune mechanism for prokaryotic hosts to resist parasites, including phages. Here, the authors show that maintenance of conditionally tolerant type III-A systems can affect the fitness of Staphylococcus aureus lysogens.