Reversing the Central Dogma: RNA-guided control of DNA in epigenetics and genome editing

The Central Dogma of the flow of genetic information is arguably the crowning achievement of 20^th century molecular biology. Reversing the flow of information from RNA to DNA or chromatin has come to the fore in recent years, from the convergence of fundamental discoveries and synthetic biology. Inspired by the example of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in mammalian genomes that direct chromatin modifications and gene expression, synthetic biologists have repurposed prokaryotic RNA-guided genome defense systems such as CRISPR to edit eukaryotic genomes and epigenomes. Here we explore the parallels of these two fields and highlight opportunities for synergy and future breakthroughs.