Matias Kaplan

TL;DR: To compare the architectures and domain organization of diverse Cas9 proteins, the atomic structures of Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes and Actinomyces naeslundii and AnaCas9 were determined by x-ray crystallography and three-dimensional reconstructions of apo-SpyCas9, SpyCas9:RNA, and SpyCas 9:RNA:DNA were obtained by negative-stain single-particle electron microscopy.

TL;DR: It is shown that Cas9 binds with high affinity to single-stranded RNA targets matching the Cas9-associated guide RNA sequence when the PAM is presented in trans as a separate DNA oligonucleotide, revealing a fundamental connection between PAM binding and substrate selection by Cas9 and highlighting the utility of Cas9 for programmable transcript recognition without the need for tags.

TL;DR: A proofreading mechanism beyond initial protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) recognition and RNA–DNA base-pairing that serves as a final specificity checkpoint before DNA double-strand break formation is highlighted.

TL;DR: A crucial role is demonstrated for oligodendrocytes in inducing clustering of sodium channels along axons in vitro and in vivo and the clusters are regularly spaced at the predicted interval in the absence of glial–axonal contact.

TL;DR: A quantitative, rapid and high-throughput mammalian cell-based RNA-Seq assay to efficiently engineer ribozyme switches that respond to theophylline, hypoxanthine, cyclic-di-GMP, and folinic acid from libraries of ~22,700 sequences in total are developed.