Another batch of anti-CRISPRs made their debut on December 29 in a study published in Cell. Although scientists recently described other Cas9 inhibitors, these inhibitors are capable of blocking Cas9 in Streptococcus pyogenes, the form of the DNA-cutting enzyme frequently used in genome editing.
“The next step is to show in human cells that using these inhibitors can actually improve the precision of gene editing by reducing off-target effects,” said coauthor Benjamin Rauch, a post-doc in Joseph Bondy-Denomy’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco, in a press release. “We also want to understand exactly how the inhibitor proteins block Cas9’s gene targeting abilities, and continue the search for more and better CRISPR inhibitors in other bacteria.”
In October, PLOS announced that Chief Executive Officer Elizabeth Marincola will be leaving the nonprofit champion of open-access publishing at the end of this year. The Scientist recently spoke with Marincola, and ...
