New killer CRISPR system is unlike any scientists have seen

freethink.com

38 points·matthewsinclair··9 comments

Clickbait-y title - this sort of thing has been seen before - it's just that this protein is more flexible about what kind of nucleic acid it will degrade. Definitely interesting but not revolutionary.

It's not just what it targets (when compared with Cas 9 and 13), but how it responds.

Basically, it just goes ape-shit, which sacrifices precision in order to maximise local damage.

This has also been seen before. Type III target binding results in the activation of non-specific nucleases. Cas13 non-specifically degrades ssRNA after target binding. Cas12a target binding results in non-specific ssDNA cleavage, though it probably doesn't result in abortive infection.

I'm not saying Cas12a2 isn't new or different, but abortive infection responses mediated by nucleic acid degradation have been observed before.

With all the doom-and-gloom we get from tech news (and society) most of the time, stories like this make me genuinely excited for the future

On the other hand I wonder the chance this leads to an extinction level super virus.

My gut tells me that would have already happened if it could.

“It could lead to new cancer treatments, better diagnostics tests, and more.”

I could be the richest man in the world. I could have 4 legs.

This is less "I could melt the sun with my laser eyes" and more "the new features of the next generation of this field tested technology are likely to lead to significant innovations".

So Cas-9 and 13 are hitmen for DNA and RNA sequences respectively.

And Cas-12a2 is a berserker with a hair trigger.

Whereas the others clear the cell of invaders, this guy pulls a Samson and brings the walls down.

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