Blog

Feng Zhang: Thrilled to announce our latest exploration of CRISPR!

Photo taken from Han Altae-Tran/Twitter

Dec 5, 2023, 18:17

Feng Zhang: Thrilled to announce our latest exploration of CRISPR!

Feng Zhang, Investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, shared a post by Han Altae-Tran, on X/Twitter:

“Thrilled to announce our latest exploration of CRISPR! By developing an advanced algorithm, we’ve analyzed 8 terabases of microbial data, leading to the discovery of over 200 novel CRISPR systems. Kudos to Han Altae-Tran and Soumya Kannan for their exceptional work!”

Quoting Han Altae-Tran‘s post:

“Our latest work exploring ultra rare CRISPR systems with new big data algorithms has been published by Science Magazine! Feng Zhang, Soumya Kannan. This thread will unwrap how we found needles in a haystack of metagenomes. Let’s dive in!

With now over a billion sequenced known proteins, it has become challenging to analyze them all. So we developed FLSHclust, an algorithm that can deep cluster billions of proteins in nearly linear time.

We used FLSHclust to develop an ultra-sensitive CRISPR discovery pipeline, discovering 188 rare CRISPR-linked systems from ~8TB of genomic data. These systems we found have diverse biochemical functions.

Strikingly, a candidate Type VII CRISPR system emerged. We show that these are a new class of RNA editors that rely on a new effector, Cas14, which contains a β-CASP RNase domain and a domain distantly related to part of Cas10.

The functions of type IV CRISPR systems have remained enigmatic for years. Our search unveiled a new subtype that uses an HNH nuclease domain, resulting in targeted processive degradation of DNA

We also uncovered new types of precise genome editors in which multi-component type I CRISPR systems naturally lost Cas3 and gained an HNH nuclease, resulting in newly evolved precise genome editors.

The remaining systems we identified include new CRISPR-linked transposon systems, CARF effectors, reverse-transcriptase associated acquisition modules, large ATPase systems, and more, highlighting the vast untapped natural diversity of CRISPR functions

We’re excited about the potential impact of our work and look forward to collaborating with the scientific community to explore these systems further. A huge thank you to our team and collaborators Rachel Oshiro, Lukas Moeller.”

For details click here.
Source: Feng Zhang/Twitter and Han Altae-Tran/Twitter