Determining the specificities of TALENs, Cas9, and other genome-editing enzymes.

Methods Enzymol
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

The rapid development of programmable site-specific endonucleases has led to a dramatic increase in genome engineering activities for research and therapeutic purposes. Specific loci of interest in the genomes of a wide range of organisms including mammals can now be modified using zinc-finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effectornucleases, and CRISPR-associated Cas9 endonucleases in a site-specific manner, in some cases requiring relatively modest effort for endonuclease design, construction, and application. While these technologies have made genome engineering widely accessible, the ability of programmable nucleases to cleave off-target sequences can limit their applicability and raise concerns about therapeutic safety. In this chapter, we review methods to evaluate and improve the DNA cleavage activity of programmable site-specific endonucleases and describe a procedure for a comprehensive off-target profiling method based on the in vitro selection of very large (~10(12)-membered) libraries of potential nuclease substrates.

Year of Publication
2014
Journal
Methods Enzymol
Volume
546
Pages
47-78
Date Published
2014
ISSN
1557-7988
DOI
10.1016/B978-0-12-801185-0.00003-9
PubMed ID
25398335
PubMed Central ID
PMC4440668
Links
Grant list
R01 GM095501 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
T32 GM007753 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
T32GM007753 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
Howard Hughes Medical Institute / United States