Alvey (CRISPR) Flashcards
What does CRISPR stand for?
- clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeat array
How many recognition sites can Cas9 have, and how does this compare to normal REs?
- up to ≈20, compared to normal 6
What was CRISPR/Cas9 discovered as?
- bacterial immune system
How does bacterial adaptive immunity work?
- DIAG*
- CAS complex recognises foreign DNA and cleaves into small pieces
- incorp into genome at CRISPR loci
- transcribed and processed into mature crRNA
- crRNA and tracrRNA forms complex w/ Cas9
- crRNAs direct Cas9 complex to foreign DNA via 20bp seq homology adj to PAM site
- foreign DNA digested
What is the PAM site, and what is its role?
- protospacer adjacent motif
- determines specificity
- aspect changed in engineering, known as guide RNA
What stops Cas9 from cleaving its own DNA?
- doesn’t have a PAM site
What are the components of engineered CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system?
- non-specific endonuclease (nearly always Cas9
- gRNA to direct nuclease to chosen site
Why are tracrRNA and crRNA joined together into single gRNA molecule for engineered CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing systems, and what else is is present?
- easier to transform 1 RNA into cell than 2
- inc presence of 20bp target seq and scaffolding seq to bind right Cas9 variant
How does Cas9 work?
- binds gRNA
- binds target DNA (as long as target is 5’ of PAM seq, or it can’t bind)
- cleaves target DNA to gen ds break
- break repaired by cell DNA repair machiner
What can cause a stem loop to form?
- palindromic seq
Why is the stem loop necessary in Cas9-gRNA complex?
- allows binding as recognition seq hangs out of complex
What 2 RNAs is native Cas9 targeted by and what are their roles?
- crRNA –> defines genomic target
- tracrRNA –> allows binding of crRNA and processing of pre-cRNA (chops up long pieces of RNA, not req in CRISPR gene editing as provide w/ already processed RNA
Why do target seqs need to be chosen which are adj to a PAM seq, and when can this be a problem?
- protects endogenous bacteria seq from being cut
- problem if no PAM seq in gene wnt to cut, but PAM variants give more choice
What is the role of PAM seqs?
- act as binding signal
What computer programme can be used to help find loci for CRISPR?
- CRISPR software matchmaker