A single protein derived from a common strain of bacteria found in the soil will offer scientists a more precise way to edit RNA.
A single protein derived from a common strain of bacteria found in the soil will offer scientists a more precise way to edit RNA.
The protein, called AcrVIA1, can halt the CRISPR-Cas13 editing process, according to new research from Cornell, Rockefeller University and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center published in the journal Science July 3.
“We’re expanding our scientific toolbox to effectively use a CRISPR without causing side effects,” said co-author Martin Wiedmann, Ph.D. ’97, the Gellert Family Professor in Food Safety and director of Cornell’s Food Safety Laboratory and Milk Quality Improvement Program. “Thanks to this bacterium, we’re getting a chance to turn off and on our ability to make changes to RNA.”
CRISPR, or the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, is a laboratory mechanism that can act like microscopic scissors and precisely edit the genes contained in DNA. Among the half-dozen types of CRISPRs in use today, CRISPR-Cas13 can edit RNA, which until now had lacked a brake in the editing process.
Read more at Cornell University
Image: Cornell University. CREDIT: Robert Barker/University Photography
