By Alyssa Cecchetelli
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In 2008 the Quake Lab at Stanford University became interested in exploring biological dark matter – large tracts of the microbial tree of life that remained unexplored. Using new single-cell sequencing approaches, the lab was able to eliminate the need for axenic (pure) ...
In January 2016 we first published a blog post titled: Which Cas9 Do I Choose for My CRISPR Experiment? The three years flew by, but since then, scientists have adapted CRISPR nucleases for many more specific research needs. In this update, we will focus on the most recent ...
Last updated Apr 17, 2020. Before being adapted by scientists to edit the genome of virtually any organisms on this planet, CRISPR-Cas systems were merely adaptive immune systems that provide bacteria protection against infectious agents. Several enzymes behind this immunity ...
RNA-editing Cas13 enzymes have taken the CRISPR world by storm. Like RNA interference, these enzymes can knock down RNA without altering the genome, but Cas13s have higher on-target specificity. New work from Konermann et al. and Yan et al. describes new Cas13d enzymes that ...
In order to bind DNA, Cas9 and other CRISPR enzymes require a short PAM sequence adjacent to the targeted sequence at the locus of interest. SpCas9’s 3’ NGG PAM occurs frequently in GC-rich genomes, but a PAM is not always available near the locus you’d like to modify. To tackle ...
By mutating one of two Cas9 nuclease domains, researchers created the CRISPR nickase. Nickases create a single-strand rather than a double-strand break, and when used with two adjacent gRNAs, can lower the probability of off-target editing. In this post, we’ll summarize how IDT ...
This post was updated on Jul 27, 2020. CRISPR, and specifically Cas9 from S. pyogenes (SpCas9), is truly an exceptional genome engineering tool. It is easy to use, functional in most species, and has many applications. That said, SpCas9 is not the only game in town, and other ...
