Viruses Commons^™

Anti-Crispr Vs. Crispr: The Evolutionary Arms Race Between Microorganisms, Rachael M. St. Jacques

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

CRISPR arrays are a defense mechanism employed by bacteria against viral invaders. Cas proteins do the work in detecting, capturing, and integrating the viral DNA into the CRISPR array (Barrangou et al., 2007). Anti-CRISPR proteins are produced by phages, viruses that infect bacteria, to stop the bacterial host’s CRISPR-Cas complex from interrupting the phage life cycle (Bondy-Denomy, et al., 2015).

SEA-PHAGES is a course-based bacteriophage research network composed of 120 colleges and known at James Madison University as Viral Discovery. JMU uses the unsequenced Streptomyces griseus ATCC10137 as a host for bacteriophage discovery and propagation, and in this study we …

Identification Of The Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome Mec (Sccmec) Element In Viral Fractions From Environmental Samples, Emily M. Pelto

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Antibiotic resistance attributed to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become a growing concern over the last decade in both the healthcare and agricultural environment. This resistance is encoded by the gene mecA that is located on a mosaic, mobile genetic element called the Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec (SCCmec) element. It is proposed that the transfer of the SCCmec element and resulting spread of resistance occur by transduction, the transfer of genetic material from bacterium to bacterium by a bacteriophage. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the transduction of this resistance is occurring in the agricultural setting. To test …