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Phoenix666 writes:

UC Berkeley scientists have discovered simple CRISPR systems similar to CRISPR-Cas9—a gene-editing tool that has revolutionized biology—in previously unexplored bacteria that have eluded efforts to grow them in the laboratory.

The new systems are highly compact, befitting their presence in some of the smallest life forms on the planet. If these systems can be re-engineered like CRISPR-Cas9, their small size could make them easier to insert into cells to edit DNA, expanding the gene-editing toolbox available to researchers and physicians.

"These are particularly interesting because the key protein in these CRISPR systems is approximately the same as Cas9, but is not Cas9. It is part of a minimal system that has obvious potential for gene editing," said Jill Banfield, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary sciences and of environmental science, policy and management.

In CRISPR-Cas systems, the Cas protein is the scissors. When targeted to a specific sequence of DNA, the Cas protein binds and severs double-stranded DNA. The new discovery nearly doubles the number of simple and compact CRISPR-Cas systems potentially useful as laboratory and biomedical tools.

"The important thing here is that we found some of these CRISPR systems in a major branch of the bacterial tree, opening the door to a whole new world of microbes that are not cultured in the lab, so we don't really know what they are and what their habits are," said co-author Jennifer Doudna, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology and of chemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Both Doudna and Banfield are faculty scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

David Burstein et al. New CRISPR–Cas systems from uncultivated microbes, Nature (2016). DOI: 10.1038/nature21059

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