Phage-mediated delivery of CRISPR payloads

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Synthetic Biology
• Genomics

Background:

• Advances in sequencing and computational tools have deepened our understanding of microbial communities.
• Engineering microbial communities requires technologies for specific and broad alterations.
• Recent progress in bacteriophage engineering, synthetic biology, and in silico methods enhances in situ perturbation capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent advances in using bacteriophages for delivering clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-Cas effectors.
• To highlight the potential of engineered phages for precise genome editing in microbial environments.
• To discuss applications in medicine, food, and agriculture.

Main Methods:

• Engineering bacteriophages with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-Cas systems.
• Utilizing recombinant phages as delivery vehicles for Cas effectors.
• Developing modified Cas effectors for diverse genome edits.

Main Results:

• Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-Cas systems provide efficient phage engineering.
• Recombinant phages can perform precision genome editing directly in host environments.
• Modified Cas effectors enable a wider range of genetic modifications.

Conclusions:

• Engineered bacteriophages are a unique and effective tool for rationally engineering microbial community function and composition.
• Despite challenges in broad phylogenetic deployment, recombinant phages show significant promise.
• This approach has broad applications in medicine, food, and agriculture for microbial community management.