CRISPR-Cas SYSTEMS: A POTENTIAL TOOL TO REDUCE THE GLOBAL BURDEN OF ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the top global health threats driving our planet to the post-antibiotic era. The formulation of antibiotics is expensive and time-consuming, and this may have delayed the production of new ones. Therefore, approaches such as Clustered Regularly Interspersed Short Palindromic Repeats-associated protein-Cas—CRISPR-Cas, a system which is capable of reverting Antimicrobial Resistance Genes (ARGs) could be the potential means of significantly reducing the burden of antimicrobial resistance globally. In this perspective, we highlight how this system has been previously applied in vivo and in vitro studies to tackle antibiotics resistance, stating its relevance as well as challenges while providing recommendation for the effective use of this system.