CRISPR-Enhanced Enhancer MappingNovember 29, 2015Enhancers are hugely important regulatory regions of DNA that control gene expression. New techniques are telling us a lot about enhancer structure and function, but the study of enhancers could still use some enhancement. Enhancers are currently defined by what they look like (local DNA methylation, histone modifications, and chromatin availability) or by pulling them […]
CRISPR Takes the PERV Out of Pig OrgansNovember 13, 2015Nobody likes a PERV – they just make everyone uncomfortable. Porcine (pig) Endogenous RetroViruses (PERVs) are a creepy concern when it comes xenotransplantation (transplanting organs from a different species), since the perks of not having to wait for an organ transplant take a hit when PERVs get all up in your genome. In order to […]
New Cas Effectors Inject Fresh Talent Onto CRISPR StageNovember 12, 2015Poor Cas9. If CRISPR were a new music trend, Cas9 would the band that was playing CRISPR long before it was cool, rode the CRISPR wave to stardom, alienated its fans with copyright battles, and is already under threat from the new kids. Less metaphorically, Cas9 is an enzyme that uses RNA spacers (crRNAs) transcribed […]
CRISPR-Cas6 Translational ActivatorsOctober 30, 2015The CRISPR-Cas system, while originally hailing from the Domain of Bacteria, has made the biggest splashes by traveling abroad into the Kingdoms of Plantae and Animalia. There it has found great fame and fortune mostly as a tool for genome editing. Scientists back in the Bacterial Domain didn’t need CRISPR as much for gene editing, […]
CRISPR as an Anti-Viral for PlantsOctober 30, 2015Home cooks know well that putting vegetables in the crisper can keep them healthy; new work shows that putting CRISPR in the vegetables works as well. Every year, plant viruses destroy tens of billions of dollars worth of crops around the world. Even worse, localized crop failures can cause food shortages and destroy family farmers. […]
Validating GWAS with Epigenome EditingOctober 10, 2015GWASs (genome-wide association studies) have found a lot of genetic variants associated with various traits and diseases. But GWASs suffer from that old weakness, the mantra of every good scientist: correlation does not imply causation. The problem gets even worse when you find out most GWAS variants are in non-coding regions of DNA, meaning they […]
Gene Circuits that Sense and Respond to DNAOctober 6, 2015Synthetic biology has gone through a sequence-specific revolution recently, with CRISPR-cas leading the charge of systems that can detect any DNA sequence of interest. But these techniques have a key limitation: they can only respond locally with one action – cutting, activating, or repressing – at that particular DNA molecule. This is like giving Paul […]
RNA-Based, DNA Free Circuits For Gene TherapyOctober 1, 2015Gene therapy, for all its recent progress, seems a bit stuck on the idea of introducing, well, genes, meaning DNA sequences. But what about that other nucleic acid, RNA? RNA potentially has several advantages over DNA, including a much lower risk of genome integration and lower immunogenicity. In fact, we recently saw a transcription-free CRISPR-cas9 […]
Cpf1 Takes CRISPR Bigger by Going SmallerSeptember 29, 2015Move over Cas9; here comes yet another CRISPR-associated player. The CRISPR pioneers in the lab of Feng Zhang at MIT continue to discover the power of CRISPR , bringing us a fancy new part for genome editing. Recently, they changed things up with a slimmer Cas9 from Staphylococcus pyogenes (spCas9) but now it seems they’ve found […]
Microlasers Hold Big Promise for Next Generation Cellular AnalysisSeptember 11, 2015Recent work by Seok Hyun Yun and Matjaž Humar has shown us that laser shows aren’t just for Pink Floyd fans. These crafty researchers incorporated specific structures into individual cells, turning them into self-contained “microlasers”. In its simplest form, laser (or light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) technology uses an energy source to amplify photons bouncing between reflective […]