May 22, 2019
Research Highlight

Virus Immunity in Geographically Diverse Microbial Populations

Extremophiles, such as the thermophiles that give the microbial mats such vivid colors in the hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, are a hot topic of study amongst astrobiologists in the UK.
Extremophiles, such as the thermophiles, thrive in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park. Pictured is Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring.Image credit: Jim Peaco/National Park Service.

A recent study provides insight into the interactions between viruses and their hosts. The research focuses on virus immunity in two geographically and genetically distinct population of a thermophilic archaea known as Sulfolobus islandicus. The research team studied how the organism utilized CRISPR-Cas immunity to fight infection from two types of viruses (Sulfolobus spindle-shaped viruses (SSVs) and S. islandicus rod-shaped viruses (SIRVs)).

Samples of the organisms were collected from Kamchatka, Russia, and Yellowstone National Park, USA. The results identified how the diversity and structure of antiviral CRISPR-Cas immunity can differ across a single microbial species, and in relation to both population and virus type. The researchers suggest that the mechanisms viruses use to evade CRISPR-Cas immunity could be different depending on the virus family.

Click here to view a description of CRISPR-Cas from the Microbiology Society.

The study, “Diversified local CRISPR-Cas immunity to viruses of Sulfolobus islandicus,” was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The work was supported by NASA Astrobiology through the Exobiology Program.