The impact of the 2015 refugee crisis on the international place brand of Hungary

This quantitative study examines how the 2015 European refugee crisis events affected the international place brand of Hungary on Twitter in both short and long terms. The study supports the application of quantitative methods and dictionary-based sentiment analysis of tweets to the discipline of place branding. There is a significant increase in the amount of negative sentiment in tweets during the crisis (July-October, 2015) due to a high number of tweets about the refugee crisis. However, this effect has not persisted after November 2015. To conduct the sentiment analysis, we apply the lexicon-based polarity dictionary SentiStrength; to divide tweets into specific topics, we use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (Blei et al, 2003). The tweets that are likely published by media organizations are excluded from the analysis. There is no significant increase in the amount of negative sentiment in tweets after the crisis, which suggests no persistent effect of the crisis on the place brand of Hungary in the long term because that negative sentiment about the crisis comes only from the tweets about the refugee crisis. The contribution of this study is the establishment of a research framework for the social media analysis of place brands in a crisis as well as in forming a solid basis for the application of this framework to studying other place brands in a crisis

Identification of an anti-CRISPR protein that inhibits the CRISPR-Cas type I-B system in Clostridioides difficile

CRISPR-Cas systems provide prokaryotic hosts with adaptive immunity against mobile genetic elements. Many bacteriophages encode anti-CRISPR (Acr) proteins that inhibit host defense. The identification of Acr proteins is challenging due to their small size and high sequence diversity, and only a limited number has been characterized to date. In this study, we report the discovery of a novel Acr protein, AcrIB2, encoded by the φCD38-2 Clostridioides difficile phage that efficiently inhibits interference by the type I-B CRISPR-Cas system of the host and likely acts as a DNA mimic. Most C. difficile strains contain two cas operons, one encoding a full set of interference and adaptation proteins and another encoding interference proteins only. Unexpectedly, we demonstrate that only the partial operon is required for interference and is subject to inhibition by AcrIB2.This work was supported by the Institut Universitaire de France (to O.S.), the Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell, the University Paris-Saclay, Graduate School Life Sciences and Health, and OI MICROBES funding and Vernadski fellowship (to P.M.). This work was also supported by NIH grant R01 GM10407 (to K.S.), the Russian Science Foundation grant 19-14-00323, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Science Federation agreement no. 075-10-2021-114

New Insights Into Functions and Possible Applications of Clostridium difficile CRISPR-Cas System

Over the last decades the enteric bacterium Clostridium difficile (novel name Clostridioides difficile) – has emerged as an important human nosocomial pathogen. It is a leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea and represents a major challenge for healthcare providers. Many aspects of C. difficile pathogenesis and its evolution remain poorly understood. Efficient defense systems against phages and other genetic elements could have contributed to the success of this enteropathogen in the phage-rich gut communities. Recent studies demonstrated the presence of an active CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas (CRISPR-associated) subtype I-B system in C. difficile. In this mini-review, we will discuss the recent advances in characterization of original features of the C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system in laboratory and clinical strains, as well as interesting perspectives for our understanding of this defense system function and regulation in this important enteropathogen. This knowledge will pave the way for the development of promising biotechnological and therapeutic tools in the future. Possible applications for the C. difficile strain monitoring and genotyping, as well as for CRISPR-based genome editing and antimicrobials are also discussed

La fonction et la régulation du système CRISPR-Cas chez un pathogène humain Clostridium difficile

Clostridium difficile (nouveau nom Clostridioides difficile) est une bactérie à Gram-positif, sporulante, anaérobie stricte, présente dans le sol et les environnements aquatiques, ainsi que dans le tractus intestinal des mammifères. C. difficile est l’un des principaux clostridies pathogènes. Cette bactérie est devenue un vrai problème de santé publique associé à l'antibiothérapie dans les pays industrialisés. La diarrhée associée à C. difficile est actuellement la diarrhée nosocomiale la plus fréquente en Europe et dans le monde. Depuis la dernière décennie, la proportion de formes d’infections graves a augmentée en raison de l’émergence des souches hypervirulantes et épidémiques comme la souche R20291 de ribotype 027. L’infection à C. difficile provoque la diarrhée, la colite et même la mort. De nombreux aspects de la pathogenèse de C. difficile restent mal compris. En particulier, les mécanismes moléculaires de son adaptation aux conditions changeantes de l'hôte doivent être examinés.Durant le cycle d'infection, C. difficile survit dans des communautés intestinales riches en bactériophages, en utilisant des systèmes qui contrôlent les échanges génétiques favorisés dans ces environnements complexes. Au cours de la dernière décennie, les systèmes CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas (associés aux CRISPR) d'immunité adaptative chez les procaryotes contre des éléments génétiques exogènes sont devenus le centre d'intérêt scientifique parmi les divers systèmes de défense bactérienne.Des études antérieures ont révélé la présence d'ARN CRISPR abondants chez C. difficile. Cette bactérie possède un système CRISPR original, caractérisé par la présence d'un grand nombre de cassettes CRISPR (12 dans la souche 630 et 9 dans la souche hypervirulante R20291), de deux ou trois opérons cas conservés dans la majorité des génomes séquencés de C. difficile et la localisation au sein des prophages de plusieurs cassettes CRISPR. Cependant, le rôle de CRISPR-Cas dans la physiologie et le cycle infectieux de cet important pathogène reste obscur.Les objectifs de ce travail sont les suivants:1) étudier le rôle et la fonctionnalité du système CRISPR-Cas de C. difficile dans les interactions avec des éléments d'ADN étrangers (tels que les plasmides), 2) révéler la manière dont le système CRISPR-Cas de C. difficile est régulé et fonctionne dans des conditions de culture bactérienne différentes, incluant la réponse aux stress.Dans la présente thèse, la fonctionnalité du système CRISPR-Cas de C. difficile a été étudiée (chapitre 2). Grâce à des tests d'efficacité de conjugaison, la fonction défensive (en interférence) du système CRISPR-Cas a été démontrée. La corrélation entre les niveaux d'expression des ARN CRISPR et les niveaux d'interférence observés a également été montrée. De plus, grâce à la série d’expériences d’interférence, la fonctionnalité des motifs PAM (protospacer adjacent motifs) a été confirmée en accord avec des prédictions in silico. Le consensus fonctionnel de PAM a été déterminé expérimentalement avec les bibliothèques des plasmides. La fonction adaptative du système CRISPR-Cas de C. difficile a été également démontrée pour la souche de laboratoire. Le rôle de plusieurs opérons cas dans la fonctionnalité du système CRISPR de C. difficile est démontré aussi dans ce chapitre.Le chapitre 3 montre le lien entre le système CRISPR-Cas et un nouveau système toxine-antitoxine de type I, ainsi que leur possible co-régulation dans des conditions de biofilm et de stress. Ce chapitre définit également le rôle possible du c-di-GMP dans la régulation du système CRISPR-Cas de C. difficile. De plus, le chapitre 4 décrit l'utilisation du système CRISPR-Cas endogène comme nouvel outil pour la rédaction du génome de C. difficile.En conclusion, les données obtenues mettent en évidence les caractéristiques originales du système CRISPR-Cas actif de C. difficile et démontrent son potentiel biotechnologique.Clostridium difficile (the novel name – Clostridioides difficile) is a Gram-positive, strictly anaerobic spore forming bacterium, found in soil and aquatic environments as well as in mammalian intestinal tracts. C. difficile is one of the major pathogenic clostridia. This bacterium has become a key public health issue associated with antibiotic therapy in industrialized countries. C. difficile-associated diarrhoea is currently the most frequently occurring nosocomial diarrhoea in Europe and worldwide. Since the last decade the number of severe infection forms has been rising due to emergence of the hypervirulent and epidemic strains as ribotype 027 R20291 strain. C. difficile infection causes diarrhoea, colitis and even death. Many aspects of C. difficile pathogenesis remain poorly understood. Particularly, the molecular mechanisms of its adaptation to changing conditions inside the host are to be scrutinized. During the infection cycle C. difficile survives in bacteriophage-rich gut communities possibly by relying on some special systems that control the genetic exchanges favored within these complex environments. During the last decade, CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas (CRISPR-associated) systems of adaptive prokaryotic immunity against exogenic genetic elements has become the center of interest among various anti-invader bacterial defense systems.Previous studies revealed the presence of abundant and diverse CRISPR RNAs in C. difficile. C. difficile has an original CRISPR system, which is characterized by the presence of an unusually large set of CRISPR arrays (12 arrays in the laboratory 630 strain and 9 ones in the hypervirulent R20291 strain), of two or three sets of cas genes conserved in the majority of sequenced C. difficile genomes and the prophage location of several CRISPR arrays. However, the role CRISPR-Cas plays in the physiology and infectious cycle of this important pathogen remains obscure.The general aims of this work run as follows: 1) to investigate the role and the functionality of C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system in the interactions with foreign DNA elements (such as plasmids), 2) to reveal the way C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system expression is regulated and functions in different states of bacterial culture, including its response to stresses. In the present PhD thesis the functionality of C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system was investigated (Chapter 2). Through conjugation efficiency assays defensive function (in interference) of C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system was demonstrated. The correlation between the previously known levels of expression of CRISPR RNAs and the observed levels of interference has also been shown. Moreover, through the series of interference experiments the functionality of PAMs (protospacer adjacent motifs) was confirmed, which have already been predicted in silico. Additionally, the general functional PAM consensus was determined using PAM libraries experiments. Furthermore, an adaptive function of C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system was shown for laboratory strain. The role of multiple cas operons in C. difficile CRISPR functionality is also demonstrated in this Chapter.In Chapter 3 the link between C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system and a new type I toxin-antitoxin system is demonstrated, as well as a possible co-regulation under biofilm and stress conditions of CRISPR-Cas system and these toxin-antitoxin modules. This Chapter also defines a possible role of c-di-GMP in regulation of C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system. Additionally, Chapter 4 describes the utilization of endogenous C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system as a novel tool for genome editing in C. difficile. Altogether, the obtained data highlight the original features of active C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system and demonstrate its biotechnological potential

New Insights Into Functions and Possible Applications of Clostridium difficile CRISPR-Cas System

International audienceOver the last decades the enteric bacterium Clostridium difficile (novel name Clostridioides difficile) - has emerged as an important human nosocomial pathogen. It is a leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea and represents a major challenge for healthcare providers. Many aspects of C. difficile pathogenesis and its evolution remain poorly understood. Efficient defense systems against phages and other genetic elements could have contributed to the success of this enteropathogen in the phage-rich gut communities. Recent studies demonstrated the presence of an active CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas (CRISPR-associated) subtype I-B system in C. difficile. In this mini-review, we will discuss the recent advances in characterization of original features of the C. difficile CRISPR-Cas system in laboratory and clinical strains, as well as interesting perspectives for our understanding of this defense system function and regulation in this important enteropathogen. This knowledge will pave the way for the development of promising biotechnological and therapeutic tools in the future. Possible applications for the C. difficile strain monitoring and genotyping, as well as for CRISPR-based genome editing and antimicrobials are also discussed

Type I toxin-antitoxin systems contribute to the maintenance of mobile genetic elements in Clostridioides difficile

International audienc

Discovery of new type I toxin–antitoxin systems adjacent to CRISPR arrays in Clostridium difficile

International audienceClostridium difficile, a major human enteropathogen, must cope with foreign DNA invaders and multiple stress factors inside the host. We have recently provided an experimental evidence of defensive function of the C. difficile CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas (CRISPR-associated) system important for its survival within phage-rich gut communities. Here, we describe the identification of type I toxin–antitoxin (TA) systems with the first functional antisense RNAs in this pathogen. Through the analysis of deep-sequencing data, we demonstrate the general co-localization with CRISPR arrays for the majority of sequenced C. difficile strains. We provide a detailed characterization of the overlapping convergent transcripts for three selected TA pairs. The toxic nature of small membrane proteins is demonstrated by the growth arrest induced by their overexpression. The co-expression of antisense RNA acting as an antitoxin prevented this growth defect. Co-regulation of CRISPR-Cas and type I TA genes by the general stress response Sigma B and biofilm-related factors further suggests a possible link between these systems with a role in recurrent C. difficile infections. Our results provide the first description of genomic links between CRISPR and type I TA systems within defense islands in line with recently emerged concept of functional coupling of immunity and cell dormancy systems in prokaryotes