title: CRISPR-Cas9 technology: applications in genome engineering, development of sequence-specific antimicrobials, and future prospects.
abstract: The development of CRISPR-Cas9 technology has revolutionized our ability to edit DNA and to modulate expression levels of genes of interest, thus providing powerful tools to accelerate the precise engineering of a wide range of organisms. In addition, the CRISPR-Cas system can be harnessed to design "precision" antimicrobials that target bacterial pathogens in a DNA sequence-specific manner. This capability will enable killing of drug-resistant microbes by selectively targeting genes involved in antibiotic resistance, biofilm formation and virulence. Here, we review the origins and mechanistic basis of CRISPR-Cas systems, discuss how this technology can be leveraged to provide a range of applications in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems, and finish by outlining limitations and future prospects.
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Biology Group, MIT Synthetic Biology Center, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Department of Biological Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. cfuente@mit.edu tim@lugroup.org and Harvard Biophysics Program, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and The Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: César
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: de la Fuente-Núñez
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Biology Group, MIT Synthetic Biology Center, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Department of Biological Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. cfuente@mit.edu tim@lugroup.org and Harvard Biophysics Program, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and The Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Timothy K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D064112:Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats / Q000235:genetics*; D015195:Drug Design; D005544:Forecasting; D000072669:Gene Editing / Q000639:trends*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
chemical_list: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents