CRISPRs in the human genome are differentially expressed between malignant and normal adjacent to tumor tissue

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPRs) have been identified in bacteria, archaea and mitochondria of plants, but not in eukaryotes. Here, we report the discovery of 12,572 putative CRISPRs randomly distributed across the human chromosomes, which we termed hCRISPRs. By using available transcriptome datasets, we demonstrate that hCRISPRs are distinctively expressed as small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) in cell lines and human tissues. Moreover, expression patterns thereof enabled us to distinguish normal from malignant tissues. In prostate cancer, we confirmed the differential hCRISPR expression between normal adjacent and malignant primary prostate tissue by RT-qPCR and demonstrate that the SHERLOCK and DETECTR dipstick tools are suitable to detect these sncRNAs. We anticipate that the discovery of CRISPRs in the human genome can be further exploited for diagnostic purposes in cancer and other medical conditions, which certainly will lead to the development of point-of-care tests based on the differential expression of the hCRISPRs.