Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34666523›Full record

ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2021

Immune lag is a major cost of prokaryotic adaptive immunity during viral outbreaks.

Jake L Weissman, Ellinor O Alseth, Sean Meaden, Edze R Westra, Jed A Fuhrman

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Why do bacteria accumulate antiphage defence systems?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  2. Phage provoke growth delays and SOS response induction despite CRISPR-Cas protection.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Jake L WeissmanDepartment of Biological Sciences-Marine and Environmental Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-4237-4807
Ellinor O AlsethEnvironment and Sustainability Institute, Biosciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, UK.
Sean MeadenEnvironment and Sustainability Institute, Biosciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, UK.
Edze R WestraEnvironment and Sustainability Institute, Biosciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-4396-0354
Jed A FuhrmanDepartment of Biological Sciences-Marine and Environmental Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas adaptive immune systems enable bacteria and archaea to efficiently respond to viral pathogens by creating a genomic record of previous encounters. These systems are broadly distributed across prokaryotic taxa, yet are surprisingly absent in a majority of organisms, suggesting that the benefits of adaptive immunity frequently do not outweigh the costs. Here, combining experiments and models, we show that a delayed immune response which allows viruses to transiently redirect cellular resources to reproduction, which we call 'immune lag', is extremely costly during viral outbreaks, even to completely immune hosts. Critically, the costs of lag are only revealed by examining the early, transient dynamics of a host-virus system occurring immediately after viral challenge. Lag is a basic parameter of microbial defence, relevant to all intracellular, post-infection antiviral defence systems, that has to-date been largely ignored by theoretical and experimental treatments of host-phage systems.

Indexed as

BacteriophagesVirusesArchaeaBacteriaCRISPR-Cas SystemsDisease Outbreaksadaptive immunitybacteriophageCRISPR-Cashost–virus interactions

Identifiers

PMID34666523
PMCPMC8527200

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

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.