Research progress of CRISPR-Cas system and anti-CRISPR protein in microorganisms

Abstract:

The CRISPR-Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR associated proteins) system is a bacterial acquired immune defense system, which can be used by bacteria to prevent the invasion of viruses, plasmids and other exogenous nucleic acids. With the further research, the CRISPR-Cas system has been successfully developed into an important tool to edit genes, and applied into gene modification in animals, plants and microorganisms. However, the CRISPR-Cas gene-editing tool sometimes exists in gene off-target effect, which limits its wide application. Recently, by combining a newly discovered anti-CRISPR protein (ACP) with CRISPR-Cas system, a gene-editing tool that can control the efficiency of gene off-target has been successfully developed. In this review, the CRISPR-Cas system and ACP were firstly introduced in brief, then the application of CRISPR-Cas gene editing tool and ACP in microbial gene modification was summarized, and the prospect of ACP-CRISPR-Cas applied in microbial gene editing was discussed.