• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Monday, September 1, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

An anti-CRISPR for gene editing

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
December 8, 2016
in Science News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram
IMAGE

Credit: Pawluk et al./Cell 2016

Researchers have discovered a way to program cells to inhibit CRISPR-Cas9 activity. "Anti-CRISPR" proteins had previously been isolated from viruses that infect bacteria, but now University of Toronto and University of Massachusetts Medical School scientists report three families of proteins that turn off CRISPR systems specifically used for gene editing. The work, which appears December 15 in Cell, offers a new strategy to prevent CRISPR-Cas9 technology from making unwanted changes.

"Making CRISPR controllable allows you to have more layers of control on the system and to turn it on or off under certain conditions, such as where it works within a cell or at what point in time," says lead author Alan Davidson, a phage biologist and bacteriologist at the University of Toronto. "The three anti-CRISPR proteins we've isolated seem to bind to different parts of the Cas9, and there are surely more out there."

CRISPR inhibitors are a natural byproduct of the evolutionary arms race between viruses and bacteria. Bacteria use CRISPR-Cas complexes to target and cut up genetic material from invading viruses. In response, viruses have developed proteins that, upon infection, can quickly bind to a host bacterium's CRISPR-Cas systems, thus nullifying their effects.

Anti-CRISPR proteins are attractive experimentally because they offer one solution for preventing potential off-target effects. Research in mice has shown that such mistakes may be rare when using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, but even the occasional error could be a serious problem when being used therapeutically in humans.

"CRISPR-Cas9 in ancillary cells, tissues, or organs is at best useless and at worst a safety risk," says co-author and collaborator Erik J. Sontheimer, a professor in the RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "But if you could build an off-switch that keeps Cas9 inactive everywhere except the intended target tissue, then the tissue specificity will be improved."

"Knowing we have a safety valve will allow people to develop many more uses for CRISPR," says co-author Karen Maxwell, an assistant professor in biochemistry who is also at the University of Toronto. "Things that may have been too risky previously might be possible now."

While the work will be of great interest to those studying gene editing and gene drives, Davidson's team is also curious to follow up on the biology of how bacterial CRISPRs and viral anti-CRISPRs interact.

"We didn't set out to find anti-CRISPRs, we were just trying to understand how phages incorporate themselves into bacterial genomes and stumbled onto something that I think will be important for biotechnology," Davidson says.

"We were being observant and following a path that we didn't know where it could lead, and it's just been a very fun and exciting story."

###

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institutes of Health. Erik Sontheimer is a co-founder and scientific advisor of Intellia Therapeutics.

Cell, Pawluk et al.: "Naturally occurring off-switches for CRISPR-Cas9" http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31589-6

Cell (@CellCellPress), the flagship journal of Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that publishes findings of unusual significance in any area of experimental biology, including but not limited to cell biology, molecular biology, neuroscience, immunology, virology and microbiology, cancer, human genetics, systems biology, signaling, and disease mechanisms and therapeutics. Visit: http://www.cell.com/cell. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact [email protected].

Media Contact

Joseph Caputo
[email protected]
617-397-2802
@CellPressNews

http://www.cellpress.com

############

Story Source: Materials provided by Scienmag

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Novel ADC Targets Fucosyl-GM1 in Lung Cancer

September 1, 2025
blank

AI-Powered Adaptive Tutoring for Moodle: A Breakthrough

September 1, 2025

Ethiopia’s Electronic Health System: Status and Opportunities

September 1, 2025

Impact of Fiber Types on Turfgrass Racing Surfaces

September 1, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    153 shares
    Share 61 Tweet 38
  • Molecules in Focus: Capturing the Timeless Dance of Particles

    143 shares
    Share 57 Tweet 36
  • New Drug Formulation Transforms Intravenous Treatments into Rapid Injections

    117 shares
    Share 47 Tweet 29
  • Do people and monkeys see colors the same way?

    112 shares
    Share 45 Tweet 28

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Novel ADC Targets Fucosyl-GM1 in Lung Cancer

AI-Powered Adaptive Tutoring for Moodle: A Breakthrough

Ethiopia’s Electronic Health System: Status and Opportunities

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.