A new development in CRISPR has been made by the father of gene editing

The father of gene editing Zhang Feng made a new development in CRISPR, and his research team identified two class II CRISPR-Cas systems (subtype VI-B) that lack Cas1 and Cas2 through recombinant rat proteins, which contain a single large effector, Cas13b and two previously-unidentified related proteins: Csx27 and Csx28.

The microbial adaptive immune system CRISPR-Cas (regular intervals of short palindromic repeat and CRISPR-related proteins) helps bacteria and archaea resist exogenous nucleic acid invasion. CRISPR-Cas system is divided into two categories: Category 1 CRISPR-Cas system is the use of a variety of Cas protein and crRNA to form a complex; 2 type CRISPR-Cas system is a large single component of the Cas protein co-crRNA.

Scientists studied the most highly-conserved cas genes involved in the CRISPR immunization phase and analyzed the microbial genome sequences of their loci and carried out a diversified CRISPR-Cas system to calculate the sequence database. Using this method, a class 2 subtype VI-A system targeting the RNA of Cas13a (formerly C2c2) was found.

In this study, Zhang Feng team used the computer database mining method and found two subtypes VI-B CRISPR-Cas system which can achieve heterologous expression of RNA interference. Cas13b treats its own CRISPR array with short or long repeats, excising the target RNA with ribonuclease activity. In addition, they also analyzed the RNA secondary structure required for the target. The discovery of these systems has helped to develop new tools for manipulating and monitoring cellular transcription processes.

The results of this study have been published in the journal Molecular Cell on February 16, and Zhang Feng is the author of this article. Zhang Feng is one of the pioneers of genomic editing technology CRISPR and has played a key role in applying the CRISPR / Cas system to human cells. In recent years, he has won many awards and has been called as "the father of gene editing" by the media. By the way, Flarebio offers high-quality recombinant proteins like recombinant TLR2 at good prices.