ERC Advanced Grant · 2020
Understanding the pan-immune system of bacteria
The perpetual arms race between bacteria and phage resulted in the evolution of efficient phage-resistance systems. Such systems, including restriction enzymes and CRISPR-Cas, have a major influence on the evolution of both bacteria and phage, and have also proven invaluable as molecular tools. We recently showed that the bacterial immune system is much richer than originally thought. We discovered the CBASS system (Cohen, Nature 2019), prokaryotic viperins (Bernheim, Nature 2020), and additional defense systems widespread in microbes (Doron, Science 2018). These discoveries relied on the observation that defense systems are organized in defense islands - areas in bacterial genomes where…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.