• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Monday, October 6, 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 Bioengineering

Powerful Tool for Bioengineering

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
November 24, 2013
in Bioengineering
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Streptococcus pyogenes is one of the bacteria in which the HZI scientists have studied the CRISPR-Cas system. (Credit: © HZI / M. Rohde)

Streptococcus pyogenes is one of the bacteria in which the HZI scientists have studied the CRISPR-Cas system. (Credit: © HZI / M. Rohde)

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Viruses cannot only cause illnesses in humans, they also infect bacteria. Those protect themselves with a kind of ‘immune system’ which — simply put — consists of specific sequences in the genetic material of the bacteria and a suitable enzyme. It detects foreign DNA, which may originate from a virus, cuts it up and thus makes the invaders harmless.

Streptococcus pyogenes is one of the bacteria in which the HZI scientists have studied the CRISPR-Cas system. (Credit: © HZI / M. Rohde)
Streptococcus pyogenes is one of the bacteria in which the HZI scientists have studied the CRISPR-Cas system. (Credit: © HZI / M. Rohde)

Scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig have now shown that the dual-RNA guided enzyme Cas9, which is involved in the process, has developed independently in various strains of bacteria. This enhances the potential of exploiting the bacterial immune system for genome engineering.

Even though it has only been discovered in recent years the immune system with the cryptic name ‘CRISPR-Cas’ has been attracting attention of geneticists and biotechnologists as it is a promising tool for genetic engineering. CRISPR is short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats, whereas Cas simply stands for the CRISPR-associated protein. Throughout evolution, this molecule has developed independently in numerous strains of bacteria. This is now shown by Prof Emmanuelle Charpentier and her colleagues at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) who published their finding in the international open access journal Nucleic Acids Research.

The CRISPR-Cas-system is not only valuable for bacteria but also for working in the laboratory. It detects a specific sequence of letters in the genetic code and cuts the DNA at this point. Thus, scientists can either remove or add genes at the interface. By this, for instance, plants can be cultivated which are resistant against vermins or fungi. Existing technologies doing the same thing are often expensive, time consuming or less accurate. In contrast to them the new method is faster, more precise and cheaper, as fewer components are needed and it can target longer gene sequences.

Additionally, this makes the system more flexible, as small changes allow the technology to adapt to different applications. “The CRISPR-Cas-system is a very powerful tool for genetic engineering,” says Emmanuelle Charpentier, who came to the HZI from Umeå and was awarded with the Humboldt Professorship in 2013. “We have analyzed and compared the enzyme Cas9 and the dual-tracrRNAs-crRNAs that guide this enzyme site-specifically to the DNA in various strains of bacteria.” Their findings allow them to classify the Cas9 proteins originating from different bacteria into groups. Within those the CRISPR-Cas systems are exchangeable which is not possible between different groups.

This allows for new ways of using the technology in the laboratory: The enzymes can be combined and thereby a variety of changes in the target-DNA can be made at once. Thus, a new therapy for genetic disorders caused by different mutations in the DNA of the patient could be on the horizon. Furthermore, the method could be used to fight the AIDS virus HIV which uses a receptor of the human immune cells to infect them. Using CRISPR-Cas, the gene for the receptor could be removed and the patients could become immune to the virus. However, it is still a long way until this aim will be reached.

Still those examples show the huge potential of the CRISPR-Cas technology. “Some of my colleagues already compare it to the PCR,” says Charpentier. This method, developed in the 1980s, allows scientists to ‘copy’ nucleic acids and therefore to manifold small amounts of DNA to such an extent that they can be analyzed biochemically. Without this ground-breaking technology a lot of experiments we consider to be routine would have never been possible.

Charpentier was not looking for new molecular methods in the first place. “Originally, we were looking for new targets for antibiotics. But we found something completely different,” says Charpentier. This is not rare in science. In fact some of the most significant scientific discoveries have been made incidentally or accidentally.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research.

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Why is the first Turkish bioengineering promotion website, Biyomuhendislik.com, so important?

February 4, 2023

Robo-fish

September 19, 2016

Mice born from ‘tricked’ eggs

September 17, 2016

UCLA researchers use stem cells to grow 3-D lung-in-a-dish

September 16, 2016
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    94 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    92 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    71 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19

About

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

Follow us

Recent News

N6-methyladenosine Enhances Pork Muscle Quality via Myofiber Regulation

Designing Thiadiazole β-Carboline Derivatives as Glucosidase Inhibitors

Mycoplasma Pneumoniae Linked to Neuromyelitis Optica Case

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 62 other subscribers
  • 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.