🧭 Guided View New to genetics? We explain every term as you browse, in plain English. Same pages, with the help built in.
⚡ Expert View You already know the biology. Just the content — clean and compact, no extra explanations. This is the default view.
Interface language
Light mode
Research paper · Foundational
CRISPR provides acquired resistance against viruses in prokaryotes
The experiment, performed at a yogurt company, that proved CRISPR is a bacterial immune system.
Simple explanation
Before anyone could use CRISPR, someone had to prove what it was for. This paper did it, in bacteria used to make yogurt: bacteria that survived a virus had captured pieces of that virus into their CRISPR arrays and used them to recognise it again.
Go deeper
Barrangou, Fremaux, Deveau, Richards, Boyaval, Moineau, Romero and Horvath demonstrated experimentally in Streptococcus thermophilus that CRISPR arrays confer phage resistance, that resistance specificity is determined by spacer content, and that spacers can be added or removed to change it.
Educational information only
This page is a reference, not medical advice. Research and regulatory status change; check the last-updated date above and confirm anything important against the primary sources listed.