Dimitriu T, Ashby B & Westra ER (2019) Transposition: A CRISPR way to get around. Curr. Biol. 29:R886-889.
Abstract
CRISPR-Cas systems provide sequence-specific immunity against selfish genetic elements in prokaryotes. Now, two studies show that transposon-encoded variants can guide sequence-specific transposition. These findings have important practical implications but also raise questions of why and how this strategy would benefit transposons.