생화학분자생물학회

	Name: Sungchul Kim ( sungchulkim.kr@gmail.com )
	2021-present	Young Scientist Fellow/Principal research investigator, Center for RNA research, Institute for Basic Science, Seoul National University, Korea
	2016-2021	Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Bioanoscience, Faculty of Applied Science, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
	2013-2016	Postdoctoral researcher, School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Korea
	2007-2013	Ph.D., School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Korea

Harnessing CRISPR-Cas adaptation for RNA recording and beyond

Prokaryotes encode clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) arrays and CRISPR-associated (Cas) genes as an adaptive immune machinery. CRISPR-Cas systems effectively protect hosts from the invasion of foreign enemies, such as bacteriophages and plasmids. During a process called 'adaptation', non-self-nucleic acid fragments are acquired as spacers between repeats in the host CRISPR array, to establish immunological memory. The highly conserved Cas1-Cas2 complexes function as molecular recorders to integrate spacers in a time course manner, which can subsequently be expressed as crRNAs complexed with Cas effector proteins for the RNA-guided interference pathways. In some of the RNA-targeting type III systems, Cas1 proteins are fused with reverse transcriptase (RT), indicating that RT-Cas1-Cas2 complexes can acquire RNA transcripts for spacer acquisition. In this review, we summarize current studies that focus on the molecular structure and function of the RT-fused Cas1-Cas2 integrase, and its potential applications as a directional RNA-recording tool in cells. Furthermore, we highlight outstanding questions for RT-Cas1-Cas2 studies and future directions for RNA-recording CRISPR technologies.


BMB Rep. 2023 Dec 6:5906. Online ahead of print.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38053290/