CRISPR's little helpers

Abstract

For millennia, humanity has been plagued by pathogenic bacteria. Until the advent of antibiotic treatments, seemingly harmless bacterial infections could have fatal consequences. However, in the microcosm that these single celled organisms inhabit, the line between being the invader or being invaded is a thin line. Bacteria and archaea are con¬stantly targeted by their viruses (bacteriophages – from Greek “to de¬vour”-bacteria). Without mechanisms in place to protect the prokar¬yotic cell from infection, bacteriophages would drive whole species to almost extinction. This thesis presents the work in which we applied techniques of molecular biology and biochemistry to investigate the mechanism certain bacterial species use to develop immunity against bacteriophages.