Studying the Features of CRISPR Loci in Stenotrophomonas

Author(s): Hengxia Fu, Mengmeng Zhang, Jiangnan Qin, Wei Luo, Bin Wang

To study the genetic structure of the Stenotrophomonas CRISPR-Cas system using bioinformatics methods. Methods The sequence information of all Stenotrophomonas strains published in the CRISPRdb database was collected, and the CRISPR locus was analyzed using the CRISPRFinder software; All spacers were searched by BLAST platform in the PubMed database to find homologous sequences, and then the relationship between the number of spacer sequences and the number of phages was statistically analyzed. Results According to statistics, 15 confirmed CRISPR structures and 132 questionable CRISPRs were found in 26 strains of Stenotrophomonas, and the repeat sequences of CRISPR structures in different strains were more conservative. Only 1.3% of spacers were homologous with the sequences of known bacteriophages or plasmid in NCBI database. Conclusion The targeted genes of the spacer sequences are mainly from the genome of the bacteria, indicating that the evolution of the Stenotrophomonas CRISPR is related to other bacterial genes. In addition, the negative correlation between the spacer sequence and the number of phages indicates that CRISPR can prevent phage invasion. Analysis of the structure of CRISPR loci in the genome of Stenotrophomonas laid the foundation for further study of drug resistance and genomic stability.

Stenotrophomonas, CRISPR-Cas Systems, Repeat Sequence, Spacer Sequence

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