Bacterial CRISPR Regions: General Features and their Potential for Epidemiological Molecular Typing Studies

INTRODUCTION: CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) loci as novel and applicable regions in prokaryotic genomes have gained great attraction in the post genomics era. METHODS: These unique regions are diverse in number and sequence composition in different pathogenic bacteria and thereby can be a suitable candidate for molecular epidemiology and genotyping studies. Results:Furthermore, the arrayed structure of CRISPR loci (several unique repeats spaced with the variable sequence) and associated cas genes act as an active prokaryotic immune system against viral replication and conjugative elements. This property can be used as a tool for RNA editing in bioengineering studies. CONCLUSION: The aim of this review was to survey some details about the history, nature, and potential applications of CRISPR arrays in both genetic engineering and bacterial genotyping studies.