Research
What We Do
Our laboratory focuses on the biology and genetics of CRISPR-Cas immune systems in bacteria. Using microbiology, molecular biology, and genomics approaches, we investigate the use of CRISPR-Cas systems for four types of applications:
1. Exploitation of CRISPR spacer hypervariability for genotyping and phylogenetic studies of bacteria and viruses
2. Leveraging CRISPR-mediated interference for building up phage resistance in probiotic strains
3. Harnessing endogenous and exogenous effectors for programmable targeting and genome editing of bacteria and beyond
4. Mining metagenomic datasets for novel genome editing effectors, including CRISPR-Cas systems and more
These activities provide insights into the genetic and molecular processes that drive CRISPR-mediated adaptive immunity in bacteria, and generate novel tools for the manipulation of industrially relevant organisms for food, agriculture, health, and biotechnological applications. We also focus on understanding the molecular basis for health promotion by beneficial lactic acid bacteria and developing next-generation probiotics.
CRISPR Lab toolbox
Our laboratory studies and optimizes numerous effector proteins for genome editing purposes. Some of these effectors are deployed exogenously, and others are endogenous to organisms of interest. While our focus is on CRISPR-Cas systems, we also explore other effectors to add to our growing toolbox.
- Cas9
- Cas12
- Cascade-Cas3
- CRISPR-associated transposons (CasTn)
- Large serine recombinases (LSR)
- Base editors (CBE, ABE)
Our organisms of interest
We study a variety of organisms, all with unique purposes and benefits, ranging from probiotics to members of complex microbial communities. We develop and deploy our CRISPR-Cas toolbox for genome editing in these organisms. The organisms we work with are good models, allowing us to create specialized genome editing toolkits and deploy them in related bacteria.
- Lactobacillaceae
- Bifidobacterium sp.
- Variovorax sp.
- Clostridium sp.
- Akkermansia sp.
- Bacteriophage
- Escherichia coli
- Streptococcus thermophilus
Collaborators
Our laboratory has collaborated with a diverse range of organizations over the past decade, including academic institutions and industry partners.
- Ancilia Biosciences
- BASF
- Colorado State University (CSU)
- Corteva Agriscience
- Dairy Management Incorporated (DMI)
- Duke University
- IFF/DuPont
- Inari Agriculture
- Intellia Therapeutics
- LifeEdit
- Locus Biosciences
- Novonesis
- Pairwise
- Provaxus
- Syngenta
- TreeCo
- University of California at Berkeley
- University of Parma, Italy
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
- VSL Probiotics
Dr. Barrangou is also affiliated with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AMCAD), the American Academy of Microbiology, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
At NC State, Dr. Barrangou is associated with the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein, the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program (CFEP) Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Cluster, the Comparative Medicine Institute (CMI), the Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Sciences (FBNS), the Genetic Engineering and Society Center (GES), the Genetics and Genomics Graduate Program, the Golden LEAF Biomanufacturing and Training Center (BTEC), the Microbiology Graduate Program, the Plant Sciences Initiative (PSI), and the Southeast Dairy Foods Research Center (SDFRC).