Journal
ANNUAL REVIEW OF GENETICS, VOL 54, 2020
Volume 54, Issue -, Pages 93-120Publisher
ANNUAL REVIEWS
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-genet-022120-112523
Keywords
CRISPR-Cas; phage defense; adaptive immunity; RNA; CRISPR targeting; spacer acquisition
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) Medical Scientist Training Program [T32GM07739]
- Burroughs Wellcome Fund PATH Award
- NIH Director's Pioneer Award [DP1GM128184]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Prokaryotes have developed numerous defense strategies to combat the constant threat posed by the diverse genetic parasites that endanger them. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas loci guard their hosts with an adaptive immune system against foreign nucleic acids. Protection starts with an immunization phase, in which short pieces of the invader's genome, known as spacers, are captured and integrated into the CRISPR locus after infection. Next, during the targeting phase, spacers are transcribed into CRISPR RNAs (crRNAs) that guide CRISPR-associated (Cas) nucleases to destroy the invader's DNA or RNA. Here we describe the many different molecular mechanisms of CRISPR targeting and how they are interconnected with the immunization phase through a third phase of the CRISPR-Cas immune response: primed spacer acquisition. In this phase, Cas proteins direct the crRNA-guided acquisition of additional spacers to achieve a more rapid and robust immunization of the population.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available