CRISPR‐Cas systems in oral microbiome: From immune defense to physiological regulation

The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats with CRISPR-associated proteins (CRISPR-Cas) system, found in bacteria and archaea, provides sequence-based adaptive immunity against mobile genetic elements, including phages and plasmids. The oral cavity contains approximately 700 prokaryote species harboring known CRISPR-Cas systems, including type I, type II, type III, type V, and type VI, and unidentified CRISPR-Cas systems....