A Programmable Dual-RNA-Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity
Our study reveals a family of endonucleases that use dual-RNAs for site-specific DNA cleavage and highlights the potential to exploit the system for RNA-programmable genome editing.
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From immune system to editor
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Bacteria store viral fragments and use CRISPR RNA to guide Cas proteins to matching DNA. Jinek et al. reconstituted Cas9 in vitro and showed a single guide RNA can target a chosen sequence.
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Programmable cuts
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Double-strand breaks at precise locations let cells repair or accept donor templates. The word programmable is literal: the guide sequence is the program.
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A different kind of paper
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Not computer science, but the same arc as Turing and Shannon: understand a natural mechanism, formalize it, unleash engineering. Biotechnology's "attention moment" for DNA.