Difference between revisions of "Team:Waterloo"

Revision as of 19:39, 16 September 2015

Simple sgRNA Exchange

Cas9 PAM Flexibility

CRISPR Plant Defense

Re-engineering CRISPR-Cas9 with functional applications in eukaryotic systems

CRISPR-Cas9 is an exciting tool for synthetic biologists because it can target and edit genomes with unprecedented specificity. Our team is attempting to re-engineer CRISPR to make it more flexible and easier to use.

Simple sgRNA Exchange: We’re making it easy to test different sgRNA designs: restriction sites added to the sgRNA backbone allow 20 nucleotide target sequences to be swapped without excessive cloning.

Cas9 PAM Flexibility: We’re applying recent research on viable mutations within Cas9’s PAM-interacting domain to design (d)Cas9 variants that bind to novel PAM sites, moving towards the goal of a suite of variants that can bind any desired sequence. We believe our re-engineered CRISPR-Cas9 will give biologists increased ability to optimize targeting in many applications.

CRISPR Plant Defense: The application we chose to explore is a proof-of-concept antiviral system defending the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana against Cauliflower Mosaic Virus, which would benefit from testing a large number of possible sgRNAs in the viral genome.

Top

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
              <div class="col-sm-5">
                  <img src="/wiki/images/5/5e/Waterloo_crispier_logo_transparent.png" alt="Waterloo iGEM CRISPieR Logo" class="img-responsive"/>
-            </div>
-            <div class="col-sm-3 text-center">
-                <h2 class="orangetext no-border">Cas9 PAM Flexibility</h2>
              </div>
              <div class="col-sm-2 text-center">
                  <h2 class="bluetext no-border">Simple sgRNA Exchange</h2>
+            </div>
+            <div class="col-sm-3 text-center">
+                <h2 class="orangetext no-border">Cas9 PAM Flexibility</h2>
              </div>
              <div class="col-sm-2 text-center">
@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
      </p>
      <p>
-         We’re making it easy to test different sgRNA designs: restriction sites added to the sgRNA backbone allow 20 nucleotide target sequences to be swapped without excessive cloning.
+         <strong>Simple sgRNA Exchange</strong>: We’re making it easy to test different sgRNA designs: restriction sites added to the sgRNA backbone allow 20 nucleotide target sequences to be swapped without excessive cloning.
      </p>
      <p>
-         Additionally, we’re applying recent research on viable mutations within Cas9’s PAM-interacting domain to design (d)Cas9 variants that bind to novel PAM sites, moving towards the goal of a suite of variants that can bind any desired sequence. We believe our re-engineered CRISPR-Cas9 will give biologists increased ability to optimize targeting in many applications.
+         <strong>Cas9 PAM Flexibility</strong>: We’re applying recent research on viable mutations within Cas9’s PAM-interacting domain to design (d)Cas9 variants that bind to novel PAM sites, moving towards the goal of a suite of variants that can bind any desired sequence. We believe our re-engineered CRISPR-Cas9 will give biologists increased ability to optimize targeting in many applications.
      </p>
      <p>
-         The application we chose to explore is a proof-of-concept antiviral system defending the model plant <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i> against Cauliflower Mosaic Virus, which would benefit from testing a large number of possible sgRNAs in the viral genome.
+         <strong>CRISPR Plant Defense</strong>: The application we chose to explore is a proof-of-concept antiviral system defending the model plant <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i> against Cauliflower Mosaic Virus, which would benefit from testing a large number of possible sgRNAs in the viral genome.
      </p>