By Andrew Hempstead
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Updated June 5, 2020. There are over 75,000 pathogenic genetic variants that have been identified in humans and catalogued in the ClinVar database. Previously developed genome editing methods using nucleases and base editors have the potential to correct only a minority of those ...
Last updated Apr 17, 2020. Before being adapted by scientists to edit the genome of virtually any organisms on this planet, CRISPR-Cas systems were merely adaptive immune systems that provide bacteria protection against infectious agents. Several enzymes behind this immunity ...
RNA-editing Cas13 enzymes have taken the CRISPR world by storm. Like RNA interference, these enzymes can knock down RNA without altering the genome, but Cas13s have higher on-target specificity. New work from Konermann et al. and Yan et al. describes new Cas13d enzymes that ...
In order to bind DNA, Cas9 and other CRISPR enzymes require a short PAM sequence adjacent to the targeted sequence at the locus of interest. SpCas9’s 3’ NGG PAM occurs frequently in GC-rich genomes, but a PAM is not always available near the locus you’d like to modify. To tackle ...
By mutating one of two Cas9 nuclease domains, researchers created the CRISPR nickase. Nickases create a single-strand rather than a double-strand break, and when used with two adjacent gRNAs, can lower the probability of off-target editing. In this post, we’ll summarize how IDT ...
This post was updated on Jul 27, 2020. CRISPR, and specifically Cas9 from S. pyogenes (SpCas9), is truly an exceptional genome engineering tool. It is easy to use, functional in most species, and has many applications. That said, SpCas9 is not the only game in town, and other ...
Cas9 is the genome editing tool of choice for a number of model organisms: mammalian cells, yeast, drosophila, plants, worms, zebrafish, frogs, some bacteria; but not thermophilic (high heat loving) bacteria. Until recently the only available Cas9 proteins were isolated from ...
