{"id":99576,"date":"2019-12-11T02:53:46","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T10:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/crispr-resistant-viruses-build-safe-rooms-to-shield-genomes-from-dna-dicing-enzymes"},"modified":"2019-12-11T02:53:46","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T10:53:46","slug":"crispr-resistant-viruses-build-safe-rooms-to-shield-genomes-from-dna-dicing-enzymes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/crispr-resistant-viruses-build-safe-rooms-to-shield-genomes-from-dna-dicing-enzymes","title":{"rendered":"CRISPR-resistant viruses build \u2018safe rooms\u2019 to shield genomes from DNA-dicing enzymes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/crispr-resistant-viruses-build-safe-rooms-to-shield-genomes-from-dna-dicing-enzymes2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bacteria and the viruses that infect them are engaged in a molecular arms race as ancient as life itself. Evolution has equipped bacteria with an arsenal of immune enzymes, including CRISPR-Cas systems, that target and destroy viral DNA. But bacteria-killing viruses, also known as phages, have devised their own tools to help them outmaneuver even the most formidable of these bacterial defenses.<\/p>\n<p>Now, scientists at UC San Francisco and UC San Diego have discovered a remarkable new strategy that some phages employ to avoid becoming the next casualty of these DNA-dicing enzymes: after they infect <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/bacteria\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">bacteria<\/a>, these phages construct an impenetrable \u201csafe room\u201d inside of their host, which protects vulnerable phage DNA from antiviral enzymes. This compartment, which resembles a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cell+nucleus\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cell nucleus<\/a>, is the most effective CRISPR shield ever discovered in viruses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn our experiments, these phages didn\u2019t succumb to any of the DNA-targeting CRISPR systems they were challenged with. This is the first time that anyone has found phages that exhibit this level of pan-CRISPR resistance,\u201d said Joseph Bondy-Denomy, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UCSF. Bondy-Denomy led the research team that made the discovery, which is detailed in a paper published Dec. 9, 2019 in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bacteria and the viruses that infect them are engaged in a molecular arms race as ancient as life itself. Evolution has equipped bacteria with an arsenal of immune enzymes, including CRISPR-Cas systems, that target and destroy viral DNA. But bacteria-killing viruses, also known as phages, have devised their own tools to help them outmaneuver even [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,385],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-evolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}