A Needle in a Base-Stack: Cas9 Structural Biology
Type
Blog Post
Published
June 4, 2024, 1:15 p.m.
...Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes.
Figure 2: Crystal structure of S. pyogenes Cas9 in the apo...NUC and REC lobes laying open like a book (Figure 2).
The portion of the CTD that recognizes the PAM is...it doesn’t appear in the crystal structure (Figure 2) at all. When this crucial recognition region is disordered...regions, so crystal structures like those in Figures 2 and 3 don’t show these regions, even if they are present...itself at the bottom of the image. Stem loops 1 and 2 extend horizontally across both lobes. The guide RNA...is required for Cas9 nuclease function. Stem loops 2 and 3 are not strictly necessary for in vitro cleavage...open conformation, but highly flexible, as in Figure 2. The guide RNA is bound primarily by the REC lobe,...