New review by Isabelle Anna Zink, Erika Wimmer and Christa Schleper published in Biomolecules:

"Heavily Armed Ancestors: CRISPR Immunity and Applications in Archaea with a Comparative Analysis of CRISPR Types in Sulfolobales"

CRISPR-Cas is an adaptive immune system found in the majority of archaea and about half of bacteria which natively stores pieces of infecting viral DNA as spacers in genomic CRISPR arrays to reuse them for specific virus destruction. We here review the most recent studies of CRISPR-Cas in archaea focussing on functional mechanisms and abundances of the diverse CRISPR types. We introduce the most widely-used archaeal CRISPR model organisms and outline applications of archaeal CRISPR-Cas systems for genome editing and gene silencing. Furthermore, a special section is dedicated to the members of the crenarchaeal hyperthermophilic order Sulfolobales by presenting a thorough comparative analysis about the distribution and abundance of CRISPR-Cas, including arrays and spacers as well as CRISPR-accessory proteins in all 53 genomes available to date. Enjoy!

Original paper:

biomolecules, DOI: 10.3390/biom10111523

Heavily Armed Ancestors: CRISPR Immunity and Applications in Archaea with a Comparative Analysis of CRISPR Types in Sulfolobales

Isabelle Anna Zink, Erika Wimmer, Christa Schleper

Full article: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/10/11/1523