Figure 7. C2c2 as a putative RNA-targeting prokaryotic immune system.
The C2c2-crRNA complex recognizes target RNA via base pairing with the cognate protospacer and cleaves the target RNA. In addition, binding of the target RNA by C2c2-crRNA activates a non-specific RNase activity which may lead to promiscuous cleavage of RNAs without complementarity to the crRNA guide sequence. Through this non-specific RNase activity, C2c2 may also cause abortive infection via programmed cell death or dormancy induction.