ArticleNature microbiology2019
Pervasive acquisition of CRISPR memory driven by inter-species mating of archaea can limit gene transfer and influence speciation.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Computational tool choice impacts CRISPR spacer-protospacer detection.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- CRISPR-Cas targeting inmicroLife · 2026Article
- A previously undescribed archaeal virus suppresses host immunity.EMBO reports · 2025Article
- Rapid rewiring of an archaeal transcription factor function via flexible cis-trans interactions.Molecular biology of the cell · 2025Article
- Review
- Evolutionary insights into provirus-encoded CRISPR-Cas systems in halophilic archaea.microLife · 2025Article
- Internal in-frame translation generates Cas11b, which is important for effective interference in an archaeal CRISPR-Cas system.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- A Haloarchaeal Transcriptional Regulator That Represses the Expression of CRISPR-Associated Genes.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- A predicted CRISPR-mediated symbiosis between uncultivated archaea.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- Discovery of archaeal fusexins homologous to eukaryotic HAP2/GCS1 gamete fusion proteins.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Article
- CRISPR Interference as a Tool to Repress Gene Expression in Haloferax volcanii.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Microbial defenses against mobile genetic elements and viruses: Who defends whom from what?PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Digging into the lesser-known aspects of CRISPR biology.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2021Review
- Article
- Insights into gene expression changes under conditions that facilitate horizontal gene transfer (mating) of a model archaeon.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Heavily Armed Ancestors: CRISPR Immunity and Applications in Archaea with a Comparative Analysis of CRISPR Types in Sulfolobales.Biomolecules · 2020Review
- Adaptation induced by self-targeting in a type I-B CRISPR-Cas system.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2020Article
- The CRISPR-Cas systems were selectively inactivated during evolution of Bacillus cereus group for adaptation to diverse environments.The ISME journal · 2020Article
- Analysis of Cell-Cell Bridges inFrontiers in microbiology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
CRISPR-Cas systems provide prokaryotes with sequence-specific immunity against viruses and plasmids based on DNA acquired from these invaders, known as spacers. Surprisingly, many archaea possess spacers that match chromosomal genes of related species, including those encoding core housekeeping genes. By sequencing genomes of environmental archaea isolated from a single site, we demonstrate that inter-species spacers are common. We show experimentally, by mating Haloferax volcanii and Haloferax mediterranei, that spacers are indeed acquired chromosome-wide, although a preference for integrated mobile elements and nearby regions of the chromosome exists. Inter-species mating induces increased spacer acquisition and may result in interactions between the acquisition machinery of the two species. Surprisingly, many of the spacers acquired following inter-species mating target self-replicons along with those originating from the mating partner, indicating that the acquisition machinery cannot distinguish self from non-self under these conditions. Engineering the chromosome of one species to be targeted by the other's CRISPR-Cas reduces gene exchange between them substantially. Thus, spacers acquired during inter-species mating could limit future gene transfer, resulting in a role for CRISPR-Cas systems in microbial speciation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.