Microbial defenses against mobile genetic elements and viruses: Who defends whom from what?

EPC Rocha, D Bikard - PLoS biology, 2022 - journals.plos.org
Prokaryotes have numerous mobile genetic elements (MGEs) that mediate horizontal gene
transfer (HGT) between cells. These elements can be costly, even deadly, and cells use …

Ecological and evolutionary solutions to the plasmid paradox

MA Brockhurst, E Harrison - Trends in microbiology, 2022 - cell.com
The'plasmid paradox'arises because, although plasmids are common features of bacterial
genomes, theoretically they should not exist: rates of conjugation were believed insufficient …

Rates of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and vaccination impact the fate of vaccine-resistant strains

SA Rella, YA Kulikova, ET Dermitzakis… - Scientific Reports, 2021 - nature.com
Vaccines are thought to be the best available solution for controlling the ongoing SARS-CoV-
2 pandemic. However, the emergence of vaccine-resistant strains may come too rapidly for …

Models of plant resistance deployment

L Rimbaud, F Fabre, J Papaïx, B Moury… - Annual review of …, 2021 - annualreviews.org
Owing to their evolutionary potential, plant pathogens are able to rapidly adapt to genetically
controlled plant resistance, often resulting in resistance breakdown and major epidemics in …

[HTML][HTML] Bacterial biodiversity drives the evolution of CRISPR-based phage resistance

EO Alseth, E Pursey, AM Luján, I McLeod, C Rollie… - Nature, 2019 - nature.com
About half of all bacteria carry genes for CRISPR–Cas adaptive immune systems, which
provide immunological memory by inserting short DNA sequences from phage and other …

Coevolution between bacterial CRISPR-Cas systems and their bacteriophages

BNJ Watson, JA Steens, RHJ Staals, ER Westra… - Cell host & …, 2021 - cell.com
CRISPR-Cas systems provide bacteria and archaea with adaptive, heritable immunity
against their viruses (bacteriophages and phages) and other parasitic genetic elements …

Evolutionary ecology and interplay of prokaryotic innate and adaptive immune systems

T Dimitriu, MD Szczelkun, ER Westra - Current Biology, 2020 - cell.com
Like many organisms, bacteria and archaea have both innate and adaptive immune systems
to defend against infection by viruses and other parasites. Innate immunity most commonly …

It is unclear how important CRISPR-Cas systems are for protecting natural populations of bacteria against infections by mobile genetic elements

ER Westra, BR Levin - … of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020 - National Acad Sciences
Articles on CRISPR commonly open with some variant of the phrase “these short
palindromic repeats and their associated endonucleases (Cas) are an adaptive immune …

Vaccine escape in a heterogeneous population: insights for SARS-CoV-2 from a simple model

JR Gog, EM Hill, L Danon… - Royal Society Open …, 2021 - royalsocietypublishing.org
As a countermeasure to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, there has been swift development and
clinical trial assessment of candidate vaccines, with subsequent deployment as part of mass …

Transient eco-evolutionary dynamics early in a phage epidemic have strong and lasting impact on the long-term evolution of bacterial defences

BNJ Watson, E Pursey, S Gandon, ER Westra - Plos Biology, 2023 - journals.plos.org
Organisms have evolved a range of constitutive (always active) and inducible (elicited by
parasites) defence mechanisms, but we have limited understanding of what drives the …