Bacteria are known to use ‘jumping genes’ to reorder their genome and fast-forward evolution. Now, scientists have discovered a mobile genetic ele

New gene-editing tool found in bacterium could carry out extensive genome remodelling

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2024-07-07 12:30:35

Bacteria are known to use ‘jumping genes’ to reorder their genome and fast-forward evolution. Now, scientists have discovered a mobile genetic element from this microbial world that might be able to rearrange large sections of our own DNA.1

This ‘takes us beyond the DNA and RNA cutting abilities of Crispr and RNA interference and towards a broader suite of capabilities’ for genome design, Patrick Hsu, geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, said at a media briefing.

His group has found an enzyme that uses an RNA bridge in two parts: one binds to a sequence of donor DNA and another to the target DNA to insert the donor sequences. The discovery stemmed from investigations of a transposable element that can cut and paste itself into microbial genomes. The non-coding RNAs flanking the sequence controls an enzyme called a DNA recombinase.

‘This new study has dipped into bacterial genomes again and found some distant cousins of the Crispr–Cas genes known as recombinases,’ says Antony Adamson, who leads the Genome Editing Unit at the University of Manchester, UK. ‘Recombinases have been known for some time and can facilitate the rearrangement of very long DNA sequences, but to date none of these systems have been “programmable”.’