Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 23, 2025

Selection-dependent and Independent Generation of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated Gene Knockouts in Mammalian Cells
Published on: June 16, 2017
Induction and Elimination of Prophages Using CRISPR Interference
Jeffrey K Cornuault1,2, Sylvain Moineau1,2,3
1Département de Biochimie, de Mmicrobiologie, et de Bio-informatique, Faculté des sciences et de Génie, Université Laval, Québec City, Canada; Université Laval, Québec City, Canada.
Abstract:
Prophages are widely spread among bacterial genomes, and they can have positive or negative effects on their hosts. A key aspect in the study of prophages is the discovery of their induction signals. Prophage induction can occur by inactivating a phage transcriptional repressor, which is responsible for maintaining the lysogenic state. This repressor can be inactivated through the bacterial SOS response. However, the induction signals for numerous prophages do not involve the SOS system, and therefore significant efforts are needed to identify these conditions. Similarly, curing bacterial strains of inducible prophages is a tedious process, requiring the screening of several colonies. Here, we investigated whether transcriptional silencing of a prophage repressor using CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) would lead to prophage induction. Using Escherichia coli phages λ and P2 as models, we demonstrated the efficiency of CRISPRi for prophage induction and for curing lysogenic strains of their prophages.
Related Concept Videos
CRISPR and crRNAs
The CRISPR-Cas system stores a copy of foreign DNA in the host genome and uses it to identify the foreign DNA upon reinfection. CRISPR-Cas has three different...
The Antiviral System of Bacteria and Archaea: CRISPR
CRISPR
CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing
Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
Homologous Recombination

