New Cas enzyme can edit RNA, target tau

In Cell, researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered a new RNA-targeting CRISPR enzyme, CRISPR-associated protein 13d (Cas13d), and showed it could be used to edit the transcript of a frontotemporal dementia target, reducing pathological isoforms of the encoded protein.

Use of CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) and the more recently discovered nuclease CRISPR-associated protein 13a (Cas13a; C2C2) to edit RNA has been limited by the nucleases' large size, which can prevent packaging of all the necessary CRISPR components into one viral vector...