434: Killer Carries Compact Cas

This episode: Large phage discovered that contains a compact
version of the CRISPR/Cas defense/gene editing system!


Download Episode (5.9 MB, 8.6 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Stenotrophomonas virus IME13




News item


Takeaways


CRISPR/Cas systems have made a lot of things in gene
editing much easier in certain organisms. It's almost as
easy as just getting the cells to produce the Cas protein
and putting in an RNA sequence to tell it where to go!
But in some cases, these requirements are too much to
work well.


 


In this study, a more compact version of CRISPR/Cas was
discovered in large bacteriophages. These systems help
the viruses compete with other viruses and defend against
host defenses sometimes. The Cas protein is half the size
of the standard Cas most used in gene editing, and it has
fewer other requirements to function in new cells, so it
could be better in versatility and potential in
applications with strict space constraints.


Journal Paper:
Pausch P, Al-Shayeb B, Bisom-Rapp E, Tsuchida CA, Li Z, Cress
BF, Knott GJ, Jacobsen SE, Banfield JF, Doudna JA. 2020.
CRISPR-CasΦ from huge phages is a hypercompact genome editor.
Science 369:333–337.




Other interesting stories:



Example of how cooperation becomes more beneficial than
independence

Programming bacteria to detect and kill specific other
microbes in a mixed community (paper)




 


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com. Thanks for listening!


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