Approximately all sequenced archaeal and half of eubacterial genomes have some sort of adaptive immune system, which enables them to target and cleave invading foreign genetic elements by an RNAi-like pathway. CRISPR–Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–CRISPR-associated proteins) systems consist of the CRISPR loci with multiple copies of a short repeat sequence separa...

The List of Prokaryotic Names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN; http://www.bacterio.net) is a database that lists the names of prokaryotes (Bacteria and Archaea) that have been validly published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology directly or by inclusion in a Validation List, under the Rules of International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria. Currently th...

Evidence for phosphorylation of proteins by protein kinases has been found in Salmonella typhimurium despite previous indications that protein kinase action is absent in prokaryotes. At least four proteins have been found to be phosphorylated. Serine and threonine phosphates have been isolated from acid hydrolysates of these proteins after in vivo and in vitro labeling. The kinases do not phosp...