The stress of carrying CRISPR-Cas

Streptococcus anginosus (S. anginosus) is a commensal that can cause severe invasive bacterial infections. A considerable percentage of S. anginosus strains harbour CRISPR-Cas systems, which apart from being a bacterial immunity system, can play an important role in adaptation to environmental stress. The functionality of S. anginosus CRISPR-Cas systems has not been investigated previously. To address this, we created a set of deletion mutants in the CRISPR-Cas type II-A system of the S. anginosus SK52 type strain, targeting the nuclease Cas9 and CRISPR array. We were able to confirm CRISPR-Cas activity by testing these strains in a plasmid clearance assay. Furthermore, the impact of the CRISPR-Cas system on the viability of S. anginosus was investigated under various stress conditions, such as UV light, hydrogen peroxide exposure, and high temperatures in wild-type S. anginosus and CRISPR-Cas mutant strains. Under these conditions, survival was significantly lower in the strains carrying cas9. Bacterial growth and metabolic activity in Alamar Blue assays were also negatively affected by the presence of cas9 in S. anginosus. In summary, we found that the presence of a functional CRISPR-Cas system in S. anginosus leads to measurable metabolic and fitness costs in the wild-type strain. Carrying cas9 was associated with an impaired stress response in our experiments and may explain why many strains of this species lack CRISPR-Cas.