Altering microbial populations and modifying microbiota
AssigneeSNIPR Technologies Limited
InventorsJasper Clube, Morten Sommer, Christian Grøndahl, Eric Van Der Helm, Ruben Vazquez-Uribe
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Abstract
The invention relates to methods, uses, systems, arrays, engineered nucleotide sequences and vectors for inhibiting bacterial population growth or for altering the relative ratio of sub-populations of first and second bacteria in a mixed population of bacteria. The invention is particularly useful, for example, for treatment of microbes such as for environmental, medical, food and beverage use. The invention relates inter alia to methods of controlling microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) or biofouling of a substrate or fluid in an industrial or domestic system.
Claims29
A method of modifying a mixed population of microbiota bacteria, the mixed population comprising a first and a second bacterial sub-population wherein the first sub-population comprises a first microbiota species and the second sub-population comprises a host cell population of a second microbiota species, wherein the second species is a different species than the first microbiota species and bacteria of said second species comprise endogenous nucleic acid encoding a functional endogenous Cas nuclease, the method comprising
- a. combining the mixed population of microbiota bacteria with multiple copies of engineered nucleic acid sequences encoding host modifying (HM) crRNAs, and
- b. expressing HM-crRNAs in host cells,
- wherein each HM-crRNA is encoded by a respective engineered nucleic acid sequence and is operable with the functional expressed endogenous Cas nuclease endogenous to said second species of bacteria and expressed in a respective host cell, said expressed endogenous Cas nuclease being active in said respective host cell,
- wherein said respective engineered nucleic acid sequence and Cas form a HM-CRISPR/Cas system and the engineered nucleic acid sequence comprises
- (i) a nucleic acid sequence comprising spacer and repeat sequences encoding said HM-crRNA;
- (ii) a nucleic acid sequence encoding a sequence of said HM-crRNA, wherein said HM-crRNA sequence is capable of hybridizing to a host cell target sequence to guide endogenous Cas nuclease to the target sequence in the host cell;
- and
- wherein the engineered nucleic acid sequence does not encode said Cas nuclease that is endogenous to said second species of bacteria;
- and
- optionally the HM-system comprises a tracrRNA sequence or a DNA sequence expressing a tracrRNA sequence;
- whereby HM-crRNAs guide endogenous Cas activity to modify host target sequences in host cells, whereby host cells are killed or the host cell population growth is reduced, thereby reducing the proportion of said host cell population and altering the relative ratio of said sub-populations of bacteria in the mixed bacterial population.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.