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The researchers have come up with a new gene editing tool, compared to a "shredder" of DNA called CRISPR / Cas3, capable of editing long DNA sequences with alterations programmable.
Presentation of CRISPR / Cas3
Geneticists from the University of Michigan (UM) and Cornell University have developed a new DNA editing tool that can be programmed for editing sequences from the University of Michigan (UM) and Cornell University. DNA longer than is currently possible with CRISPR / Cas9 gene editing.
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Called CRISPR / Cas3, this new system could revolutionize disease research, according to Yan Zhang, Ph.D., badistant professor of biological chemistry who led the research.
"Cas9 is a molecular scissor that goes where you want it and cuts once," Zhang said. "But Cas3 goes where you want, runs the chromosome and creates a spectrum of deletions of tens of kilobases, which could make it a powerful screening tool for determining which large areas of DNA are most important for an illness. given. "
The potential lies in the ability of researchers to experiment over long stretches of DNA without knowing precisely which genome gene they should target. With CRISPR / Cas3, they could simply edit entire segments of DNA and see what happens.
How CRISPR / Cas3 works
Called "shredder", the comparison is relevant. Unlike the scissor feature of CRISPR / Cas9, CRISPR / Cas3 moves the full length of the designated DNA segment and "shreds" the underlying material.
The CRISPR-Cas-9 and CRISPR / Cas3 systems are borrowed from bacteria, but the Cas3 variety uses a CRISPR type I, which is more common in bacteria than the CRISPR type II used in Cas9. According to UM, who co-patented the technique alongside Cornell University, "CRISPR type I has never been used in eukaryotic cells and uses a riboprotein complex called Cascade to search for its target. and an enzyme called Cas3 to shred the DNA. "
The search was published in Molecular cell.
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