ABSTRACT
The scientific breakthrough in the discovery of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated 9 (Cas9) endonuclease system emerged as a new generation genome-editing tool for efficient, robust, and selective site-directed mutagenesis strategy for RNA-guided genome-editing. Apart from its therapeutic applications, the potential of CRISPR-related applications in prokaryotes in the food industry is growing day by day. We have adopted this miracle machinery from prokatyotes itself and it is going to reshape the future of next generation probiotics and nutraceuticals. “Nutraceutical” is a substance that may be considered a food or part of food that provides medical or health benefits, encompassing prevention and treatment of disease. They may be dietary supplements, herbal products, processed food, phytochemicals etc. CRISPR-based gene editing in probiotic microbes is advancing to improve the rate of survival in our gut, increase bile salt hydrolase activities, and fine-tune immunomodulatory properties through up or down regulation of surface-associated proteins and other molecules. This chapter discusses some of the common sources of microbial nutraceuticals and probiotics, and those developed through the gene editing by CRISPR technology.
