Genetic Engineering Publications - GEG Tech top picks

In a paper published in Science, Silas et al. now report that a subset of CRISPR systems has the ability to acquire spacers not only from DNA but from RNA as well. The team concludes that the acquisition of RNA spacers by type III CRISPR systems may enable the targeting of parasitic RNA species, such as RNA phages, and may contribute to immune responses towards highly transcribed regions of DNA phages and plasmids via an interference system targeting DNA, RNA or both. In addition, the authors highlight the possibility that RNA spacer acquisition could also occur in species that have seperately encoded RT and Cas1 proteins.