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What is CRISPR?
I read everywhere about this CRISPR. There is a recent news in this site about treating cancer with CRISPR. Can anyone give a plain explanation?
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CRISPR-Cas9 is originally a defense mechanism of bacteria against invading phages. It is now used as a gene editing technique, which was recognized by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.
CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. It is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacteriophages that had previously infected the prokaryote. They are used to detect and destroy DNA from similar bacteriophages during subsequent infections. Hence these sequences play a key role in the antiviral (i.e., anti-phage) defense system of prokaryotes and provide a form of acquired immunity.
Cas9 (or “CRISPR-associated protein 9”) is an endonuclease enzyme. It uses CRISPR sequences as a guide to recognize and cleave specific strands of DNA that are complementary to the CRISPR sequence.
This defense mechanism forms the basis of a technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 that can be used to edit genes within organisms. Cas9 is used with a guide RNA to cut double stranded DNA at a specific site identified by the guide RNA. By manipulating the nucleotide sequence of the guide RNA, the artificial Cas9 system could be programmed to target any DNA sequence for cleavage.
This editing process has a wide variety of applications including basic biological research, development of biotechnological products, and diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
Go to this site News to see that CRISPR-Cas9 technology has been used for treatment of sickle cell disease and targeting cancer cells for destruction.
To read more about the applications of CRISPR-Cas9, click here.
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