Andres Ceballos-Garzon, Angela B Muñoz, Juan D Plata, Zilpa A Sanchez-Quitian, Jose Ramos-Vivas
{"title":"Phages, anti-CRISPR proteins, and drug-resistant bacteria: what do we know about this triad?","authors":"Andres Ceballos-Garzon, Angela B Muñoz, Juan D Plata, Zilpa A Sanchez-Quitian, Jose Ramos-Vivas","doi":"10.1093/femspd/ftac039","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Phages are viruses that infect bacteria, relying on their genetic machinery to replicate. To survive the constant attack of phages, bacteria have developed diverse defense strategies to act against them. Nevertheless, phages rapidly co-evolve to overcome these barriers, resulting in a constant, and often surprising, molecular arms race. Thus, some phages have evolved protein inhibitors known as anti-CRISPRs (∼50-150 amino acids), which antagonize the bacterial CRISPR-Cas immune response. To date, around 45 anti-CRISPRs proteins with different mechanisms and structures have been discovered against the CRISPR-Cas type I and type II present in important animal and human pathogens such as Escherichia, Morganella, Klebsiella, Enterococcus, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, and Salmonella. Considering the alarming growth of antibiotic resistance, phage therapy, either alone or in combination with antibiotics, appears to be a promising alternative for the treatment of many bacterial infections. In this review, we illustrated the biological and clinical aspects of using phage therapy; furthermore, the CRISPR-Cas mechanism, and the interesting activity of anti-CRISPR proteins as a possible weapon to combat bacteria.</p>","PeriodicalId":19795,"journal":{"name":"Pathogens and disease","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.7000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Pathogens and disease","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/ftac039","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"IMMUNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Phages are viruses that infect bacteria, relying on their genetic machinery to replicate. To survive the constant attack of phages, bacteria have developed diverse defense strategies to act against them. Nevertheless, phages rapidly co-evolve to overcome these barriers, resulting in a constant, and often surprising, molecular arms race. Thus, some phages have evolved protein inhibitors known as anti-CRISPRs (∼50-150 amino acids), which antagonize the bacterial CRISPR-Cas immune response. To date, around 45 anti-CRISPRs proteins with different mechanisms and structures have been discovered against the CRISPR-Cas type I and type II present in important animal and human pathogens such as Escherichia, Morganella, Klebsiella, Enterococcus, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, and Salmonella. Considering the alarming growth of antibiotic resistance, phage therapy, either alone or in combination with antibiotics, appears to be a promising alternative for the treatment of many bacterial infections. In this review, we illustrated the biological and clinical aspects of using phage therapy; furthermore, the CRISPR-Cas mechanism, and the interesting activity of anti-CRISPR proteins as a possible weapon to combat bacteria.
期刊介绍:
Pathogens and Disease publishes outstanding primary research on hypothesis- and discovery-driven studies on pathogens, host-pathogen interactions, host response to infection and their molecular and cellular correlates. It covers all pathogens – eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and viruses – and includes zoonotic pathogens and experimental translational applications.