Year: 2018
Type: editorial
Abstract: CRISPR technologies are having a profound impact on our ability to manipulate the genomic content of different organisms.These technologies rely on prokaryotic immune systems called CRISPR-Cas systems and their RNA-directed nucleases that bind and cleave complementary sequences.Much of the fanfare around CRISPR technologies has been their application to higher eukaryotes such as mammals, plants, and insects.However, there have been similarly important advances in industrially-relevant microorganisms.These microorganisms have been mainstays of numerous industries devoted to the production of foods, fuels, pharmaceuticals, and commodity chemicals, where genetic manipulation has allowed the interrogation of their genetic features as well as the enhancement of their metabolic and physiological capabilities.While genome-editing tools were available prior to the advent of CRISPR, CRISPR made many manipulations simpler and faster.Given the ease in implementing CRISPR, it is has become a standard tool in virtually all industrial microbes.Despite these strides forward, CRISPR remains a fledgling technology that was established only a few years ago.Accordingly, new advances are continually being reported that improve upon CRISPR as a tool, extend CRISPR to new microorganisms, and establish novel applications relevant to strain development.We are pleased to present this special issue in Biotechnology Journal that addresses the forefront of CRISPR technologies and their application to microbial strain engineering.The issue entails a collection of five review articles and eleven original research articles highlighting what has been achieved with CRISPR to-date and what challenges await new discoveries and developments.We provide a brief overview of these articles that are organized based on generalized CRISPR technologies and their application to industrially-relevant strains of bacteria, yeast, and microalgae. Generalized CRISPR technologies.Four review articles offer insights into the state of CRISPR technologies applicable to all microorganisms.Tarasava and coworkers provide a comprehensive overview of how CRISPR has been applied for genome editing and gene regulation in bacteria and yeast.[1] As part of their analyses, the authors compare the different available techniques, describe their application to metabolic engineering and synthetic circuit design, and highlight some of the limitations and workarounds for the original.In parallel, Naduthodi and coworkers review advances in genome editing with Cas9 in photosynthetic microorganisms, including cyanobacteria and microalgae.[2] They summarize all instances of
Source: Biotechnology Journal
Authors: Hal S. Alper, Chase L. Beisel
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2890339744