Recognition mechanism of Cpf1-crRNA complex in CRISPR-Cpf1 from crystal structure

Abstract

After discovery of the first CRISPR system, they have been widely used as a highly efficient genome editing tool for their steerable process and great specificity as well. But with more discoveries of many new CRISPR system springing out, we also need to better understand their structures in detail in order to utilize the whole system more specifically, which also has great potential contributions to treatment and prevention for abnormal issues when using CRISPR system. Recently, many researchers are devoting them into structure determination work and have made some impressive progress. In this microreview, we talk about the structure of one novel CRIPSR system, different from well-known CRISPR-Cas9 system, named CRISPR-Cpf1, but also belongs to class 2 CRISPR-Cas system. Some researchers recently obtained the crystal structure of Cpf1-crRNA complex, which is tremendously useful to propose mechanism for the significant RNA recognition process. Based on these work, we can make further steps in engineering CRISPR systems but regardless of current discovered diverse sub-systems like CRISPR-Cpf1, and more and more clear understanding for them, there still exist many open unanswered question about detailed structural information and approaches to improve system’s accuracy or flexibly adapt system’s endurance. In all, more brilliant work are needed in this appreciably promising field.