Abstract
Over the last decades the enteric bacterium Clostridium difficile (novel name Clostridioides difficile) – has emerged as an important human nosocomial pathogen. It is a leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea and represents a major challenge for healthcare providers. Many aspects of C. difficile pathogenesis and its evolution remain poorly understood. Efficient defense systems against phages and other genetic elements could have contributed to the success of this enteropathogen in the phage-rich gut communities. Recent studies demonstrated the presence of an active CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas (CRISPR-associated) subtype I-B system in C. difficile. In this mini-review, we will discuss the recent advances in characterization of original features of the C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system in laboratory and clinical strains, as well as interesting perspectives for our understanding of this defense system function and regulation in this important enteropathogen. This knowledge will pave the way for the development of promising biotechnological and therapeutic tools in the future. Possible applications for the C. difficile strain monitoring and genotyping, as well as for CRISPR-based genome editing and antimicrobials are also discussed.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Konstantinos Papadimitriou, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece Meera Unnikrishnan, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
At the first phase a CRISPR array is transcribed into a long RNA transcript, which is processed into small CRISPR RNAs, each consisting of one spacer and flanking repeat sequences
Some C. difficile strains could have lost the ability to adapt to new genetic elements through their CRISPR-Cas systems
Summary
Reviewed by: Konstantinos Papadimitriou, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece Meera Unnikrishnan, University of Warwick, United Kingdom. All investigated CRISPR-Cas systems are divided into two classes, characterized by the composition of cas genes involved in interference module (Koonin et al, 2017). This enteropathogen must cope with the presence of foreign DNA elements, including bacteriophages, in the crowded environment of the gut, and is expected to rely on efficient defense systems such as CRISPR-Cas to control genetic exchanges favored in its complex niche.
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