Phages vs. CRISPR

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Over the past few years The Atlantic has done some commendable reporting on CRISPR, and a few weeks ago published an interesting article on phages which protect themselves from editing by bacteria deployed CRISPR.

Basically, these phages have proteins that stick to the scissorlike CRISPR enzymes and blunt them. One phage in particular, called phiKZ, can resist every version of CRISPR introduced to attempt to edit it – in other words, it’s anti-CRISPR protein seems to be universally applicable. Further research demonstrated that the phage surrounds encapsulated its DNA inside a shell of protein which it suspends inside itself with thin filaments, thus preventing CRISPR from reaching the DNA and preventing any editing.

Researchers observing through microscopes observed this phenomenon, watching the shell block the CRISPR scissors. When the phages DNA was removed from the shell the CRISPR scissors could edit it and the phages were destroyed.

This is a very brief summary of a brief summary, and we encourage you to either ready the Atlantic article in its entirety or a more technical version in Nature. This is a fascinating discover and could lead to developments in gene-editing control technologies.

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