醋酸菌中CRISPR位点的比较基因组学与进化分析

Comparative genomics and evolutionary analysis of CRISPR loci in acetic acid bacteria

CRISPR(Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)是近几年发现的一种广泛存在于细菌和古菌中,能够应对外源DNA干扰(噬菌体、病毒、质粒等),并提供免疫机制的重复序列结构。CRISPR系统通常由同向重复序列、前导序列、间隔序列和CRISPR相关蛋白组成。本研究以醋酸发酵中常见3个属醋杆菌属(Acetobacter)、葡糖醋杆菌属(Gluconacetobacter)和葡糖杆菌属(Gluconobacter)的48个菌株为研究对象,通过其基因组上CRISPR相关基因序列的生物信息学分析,探索CRISPR位点在醋酸菌中的多态性及其进化模式。结果表明48株醋酸菌中有32株存在CRISPR结构,大部分CRISPR-Cas结构属于type I-E和type I-C类型。除了葡糖杆菌属外,葡糖醋杆菌属和醋杆菌属中的部分菌株含有II类的CRISPR-Cas系统结构(CRISPR-Cas9)。来自不同属菌株的CRISPR结构中重复序列具有较强的保守性,而且部分菌株CRISPR结构中的前导序列具有保守的motif(与基因的转录调控有关)及启动子序列。进化树分析表明cas1适合用于醋酸菌株的分类,而不同菌株间cas1基因的进化与重复序列的保守性相关,预示它们可能受相似的功能选择压力。此外,间隔序列的数量与噬菌体数量及插入序列(Insertion sequence,IS)数量有正相关的趋势,说明醋酸菌在进化过程中可能正不断受新的外源DNA入侵。醋酸菌中CRISPR结构位点的分析,为进一步研究不同醋酸菌株对醋酸胁迫耐受性差异及其基因组稳定性的分子机制奠定了基础。

The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat（CRISPR） is a widespread adaptive immunity system that exists in most archaea and many bacteria against foreign DNA, such as phages, viruses and plasmids. In general, CRISPR system consists of direct repeat, leader, spacer and CRISPR-associated sequences. Acetic acid bacteria（AAB） play an important role in industrial fermentation of vinegar and bioelectrochemistry. To investigate the polymorphism and evolution pattern of CRISPR loci in acetic acid bacteria, bioinformatic analyses were performed on 48 species from three main genera（Acetobacter, Gluconacetobacter and Gluconobacter） with whole genome sequences available from the NCBI database. The results showed that the CRISPR system existed in 32 species of the 48 strains studied. Most of the CRISPR-Cas system in AAB belonged to type I CRISPR–Cas system（subtype E and C）, but type II CRISPR-Cas system which contain cas9 gene was only found in the genus Acetobacter and Gluconacetobacter. The repeat sequences of some CRISPR were highly conserved among species from different genera, and the leader sequences of some CRISPR possessed conservative motif, which was associated with regulated promoters. Moreover, phylogenetic analysis of cas1 demonstrated that they were suitable for classification of species. The conservation of cas1 genes was associated with that of repeat sequences among different strains, suggesting they were subjected to similar functional constraints. Moreover, the number of spacer was positively correlated with the number of prophages and insertion sequences, indicating the acetic acid bacteria were continually invaded by new foreign DNA. The comparative analysis of CRISR loci in acetic acid bacteria provided the basis for investigating the molecular mechanism of different acetic acid tolerance and genome stability in acetic acid bacteria.