CRISPR

Question 1

What does CRISPR stand for?

Answer 1

clustered regularly interspaced short palandromic repeats

Question 2

what is CRISPR used for?

Answer 2

a bacterial immune system to defend against pathogens

Question 3

how does viral DNA get into a bacteria’s genome?

Answer 3

CAS enzymes identify and cut a section of viral DNA and place it amongst the palindromic repeats

Question 4

what is spacer DNA?

Answer 4

sections of DNA from foreign substances such as viruses and bacteriophages

Question 5

what is transcribed?

Answer 5

tracrRNA (backbone), crRNA (complementary sequence) and cas-9 protein

Question 6

how does a cas-9 complex arise

Answer 6

tracer RNA has some complementary sections to the palindromic repeats, binding it to crRNA, CAS-9 joins, pre crRNA is cleaved by Rnase 3 to create seperate complexes

Question 7

what will happen if the virus re-enters?

Answer 7

the complex will identify the viral DNA through the complementary sequence to the crRNA, the nuclease enzyme will search for a PAM to cut the target DNA

Question 8

what is the purpose of PAMs

Answer 8

to identify own to foreign DNA and to identify where the target DNA is on viral DNA

Question 9

how is CRISPR used outside of bacteria

Answer 9

single guide RNA (sgRNA) which can be made to have any complementary sequence, targeting any piece of DNA

Question 10

What is sgRNA

Answer 10

a synthetic piece of RNA that joins what would originally be the trRNA and crRNA