Fig. 5

Assays for conjugation and interference efficiency in wild type (WT) and slr0214 mutant cell lines. The conjugation efficiency was tested for plasmids carrying a protospacer to spacer 1 and a functional protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) of the CRISPR1 system and therefore were potential targets (labelled pT) or that lacked the protospacer or maintained a non-PAM fused to the protospacer and served as non-target controls (labelled pNT). The protospacer in the pT plasmids was linked to a functional GTC or GTA PAM that facilitates recognition of the invader DNA or to an AGC non-PAM that does not license interference in Synechocystis 6803 [24]. a Plates showing interference and growth of colonies following conjugation into wild type cells. b Assay in the Δslr0214-A1 deletion mutant. c Assay in the Δslr0214-B1 insertion mutant. d Conjugation efficiencies (numbers of colonies normalized to the wild type with the pNT plasmid control). The bars represent the mean ± SE of three biological replicates each