Applications of Genome Editing in Extremophiles

The member of bacteria, archaea, and eukarya comes under the umbrella of extremophiles. Extremophiles can survive in the extremely harsh conditions of the environment like temperature, pH, salinity, etc. The evolutionary adaptation of extremophiles is astonishing. The manipulation of genome sequences in the extremophiles may become very useful for mankind. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is the most helpful tool for editing the genome sequence to remove the harmful/toxic substance-producing gene and can also be used to enhance the activity of specific genes that make beneficial substances. The NGIB (next-generation industrial biotechnology) has been engineered to deliver industrially essential bio-chemicals in bulk. This chapter will focus on the basic genome editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 system to edit the genome sequence of extremophiles and their applications.