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Professor Yoshizumi Ishino demonstrates a DNA analysis experiment at Kyushu University in Higashi-ku, Fukuoka (photographed December 2016)
Crisper Cass 9 (CRISPR / Cas9), a genome editor, was selected for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on the 7th. It was Yoshizumi Ishino, a professor at Kyushu University (63), who discovered a gene called “crisper” which is the basis of their work.
In 1987, while decoding the Escherichia coli genes, Ishino found a strange DNA sequence and published it in an article. In the DNA code, the same string of characters appeared over and over again as “… CGGTTT … CGGTTTT … CGGTTTT …”. I’ve never seen a gene like this. Mr. Ishino thought, “There is something.”
But at the time, there was no way to find out what the gene meant. So at the end of the article, he wrote, “I don’t know the role, but I found a strange DNA sequence.” After that, Mr. Ishino began to study another species of microorganism called paleobacterium.
In the 1990s, as analyzers progressed and DNA decoding became easier, information from the DNA of many organisms, from yeast and bacteria to humans, began to be compiled into databases.
Finally, foreign researchers who examined the database noted that the sharper sequence contained part of the genetic sequence of the virus, which is the enemy of the bacteria. Crisper was a mechanism to register genes as viruses, that is, DNA sequences related to immunity, in order to identify enemies.
When a virus registered in Crisper invades, a protein called Cass works and cuts the partner’s gene to make it inoperable. It was Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Daudna who applied the cutting mechanism to the method of cutting and pasting genes.
