CRISPRmehhanismi

CRISPR mechanism refers to a publicly known mechanism of the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) system that plays a part in the adaptive immune system of prokaryotes. It is capable of acting as a defense system against foreign genetic material such as plasmids and viruses, by cutting them at specific sites.

This system functions by incorporating short RNA sequences derived from captured viral or plasmid DNA as renewable spacers in a prokaryotic genome. These spacers serve as a basis for recognizing and degrading invading genetic material sequences. Key function of CRISPR mechanism involves the uses of cas9 protein to attach to DNA and create a double-strand break at a targeted sequence location. Such double strand breaks lead to degradation of foreign genetic material or modification of the host organisms' genome.

Two main types of known small crRNA (crRNA) involved in this system are - necessary crRNA (tracrRNA) and species specific crRNA which is target guided. When a sufficient level of crRNA-protein complexes is produced in response to an invading genetic material, the controlling cellular processes are initiated, including the binding of cas9 to crRNA, subsequently causes the recognition and degradation of foreign genetic materials.

CRISPR has been widely researched and remains a topic of study in biotechnology where advancements have led to design of genome editing tool Cas9 or otherwise known guide RNA assisted CRISPR technology which enables precise, controlled modifications to gene sequences within genomes of organisms.