So what is CRISPR/Cas9? (I don't know why, but to me the first part sounds like how some people like their bacon) CRISPR stands for "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats" - quite a mouthful, huh? - and Cas refers to any CRISPR-associated genes/proteins. CRISPR sequences originate from prokaryotes and are most abundantly found in archaea. These organisms use this mechanism as their "immune system" as it allows them to cut beneficial genes from outside DNA sources and incorporate them into their own genome or to just inactivate harmful DNA from invaders, such as viruses or other bacteria.
There are multiple Cas proteins, but Cas9 is the main one associated with gene editing and silencing. Different forms of this protein play various roles in the editing process; for example, one form can induce double-stranded DNA breaks, while another form may only be able to bind to the target DNA and control the expression of that gene. This system is only 3 years old so there is much more potential to be discovered!
More detailed explanations and more can be found at the following sites:
https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/crispr-cas9-and-targeted-genome-editing-a-new-era-in-molecular-biology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR
Hope you enjoyed it!
-Michelle
And if anyone is confused by the nucleic acid and protein hybrid that this complex represents, they should read Michelle's previous post.
ReplyDeleteAre these assembled in vitro?
From what I've read, yes, but they can be used both in vitro and in vivo.
DeleteIt's a long stretch.....but I wonder if this could have any effect on quadruplexes. Since Cas9 has to deal with gene editing and silencing, I'm curious if it could be used to help silence a way from a quadruplex to occur within a cell. Here is a link to the article that touches on the topic of quadruplexes if needed:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150909090609.htm
That definitely is interesting! A quadruplex seems a bit crowded, so I think it would depend on if the complex had any room to bind.
DeleteIts interesting to me that it just inactivates the harmful DNA from invaders. it will be interesting to see where they take this research.
ReplyDelete