05 Nov

In: Current Affairs, News By: Admin 0 Comments

Genes contain the bio-information that defines any individual. Physical attributes like height, skin or hair colour, more subtle features and even behavioural traits can be attributed to information encoded in the genetic material.
An ability to alter this information gives scientists the power to control some of these features. Gene “editing” — sometimes expressed in related, but not always equivalent, terms like genetic modification, genetic manipulation or genetic engineering — is not new.

The CRISPR/Cas9 system allows for adding, altering and deleting the genomic code in living beings.
Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) are pieces of DNA that bacteria snip off from viruses that once attacked them.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the importance of ‘memory cells’, which can quickly produce relevant antibodies to neutralise a repeat infection by a virus.
Similarly, the CRISPR are a part of bacteria’s immunological systems that help them in recognising threatening viruses.
When they sense a lurking virus, the bacteria produce customised RNA, which is necessary to translate DNA into protein, gleaned from the CRISPR libraries.
This also contains Cas (CRISPR-associated) genes that are used to produce enzymes such as Cas-9.
These enzymes — the Cas-9 being a particularly popular one — can be used to chop the DNA of the virus and destroy them.

CRISPR Technology - INSIGHTSIAS

CRISPR-Cas9 technology behaves like a cut-and-paste mechanism on DNA strands that contain genetic information.
The specific location of the genetic codes that need to be changed, or “edited”, is identified on the DNA strand, and then, using the Cas9 protein, which acts like a pair of scissors, that location is cut off from the strand. A DNA strand, when broken, has a natural tendency to repair itself.
Scientists intervene during this auto-repair process, supplying the desired sequence of genetic codes that binds itself with the broken DNA strand.

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