Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (4): 1608-1620.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2025.04.012

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Class II CRISPR/Cas Systems and Their Applications in Bacterial Synthetic Biology

LI Xiaohan1,2(), LI Guiping2(), HUO Caiyun2, ZHANG Qilong3, SUN Yingjian1, SUN Huiling2,*()   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Beijing University of Agriculture, Beijing 100096, China
    2. Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Beijing 100097, China
    3. Beijing Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102629, China
  • Received:2024-05-27 Online:2025-04-23 Published:2025-04-28
  • Contact: SUN Huiling E-mail:1025290934@qq.com;lgp709@sina.cn;sunhuiling01@163.com

Abstract:

The CRISPR/Cas system is an adaptive immune system widely present in bacteria and archaea. It targets and cleaves specific nucleic acid sequences using RNA-guided nucleases to defend against foreign nucleic acid invasion. Based on the composition of effector protein complexes, the CRISPR/Cas system can be divided into two main classes: Class I systems utilize effector complexes composed of multiple Cas proteins, acting together with crRNA to exert target cleavage function, while Class II systems consist of single, multi-domain protein effector modules. Among them, the single-component effector protein-mediated Class II CRISPR gene editing technology is relatively straightforward and has been widely applied in synthetic biology fields such as bacterial gene expression regulation, genetic modification, metabolic pathway optimization, and pathogenic microorganism detection. Based on the differences in the Cas effector protein nuclease domains, Class II systems can further be categorized into subtypes II, V, and VI, each exhibiting differences in their applications in bacterial synthetic biology. This article reviews the immunological mechanisms, classification, and characteristics of Class II CRISPR-Cas systems, as well as their current applications and the latest developments in industrial bacteria, aiming to provide a reference for future research in bacterial synthetic biology to select, optimize, and explore more CRISPR/Cas systems.

Key words: CRISPR/Cas system, bacteria, gene editing, synthetic biology, effector protein

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