Community post

A new paper by Alexander Meeske and colleagues at Rockefeller University shows that CRISPR-Cas13, poorly understood compared to other CRISPR-Cas systems, leads to host cell growth inhibition (through degradation of both phage and host RNA) in the presence of phage. This way, the cell can defend against phages without selecting for CRISPR-resistant mutant phages. See also this commentary on the paper by Simon Jackson and Peter Fineran.