Mehmet Fatih Bolukbasi, Ankit Gupta, Sarah Oikemus, Alan G Derr, Manuel Garber, Michael H Brodsky, Lihua Julie Zhu, Scot A Wolfe
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引用次数: 113
Abstract
Fusing a DNA-binding domain to Cas9 with an attenuated, more promiscuous PAM-recognition domain increases the targeting range of Cas9 as well as its specificity. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is commonly used in biomedical research; however, the precision of Cas9 is suboptimal for applications that involve editing a large population of cells (for example, gene therapy). Variations on the standard Cas9 system have yielded improvements in the precision of targeted DNA cleavage, but they often restrict the range of targetable sequences. It remains unclear whether these variants can limit lesions to a single site in the human genome over a large cohort of treated cells. Here we show that by fusing a programmable DNA-binding domain (pDBD) to Cas9 and attenuating Cas9’s inherent DNA-binding affinity, we were able to produce a Cas9-pDBD chimera with dramatically improved precision and an increased targeting range. Because the specificity and affinity of this framework can be easily tuned, Cas9-pDBDs provide a flexible system that can be tailored to achieve extremely precise genome editing at nearly any genomic locus.
期刊介绍:
Nature Methods is a monthly journal that focuses on publishing innovative methods and substantial enhancements to fundamental life sciences research techniques. Geared towards a diverse, interdisciplinary readership of researchers in academia and industry engaged in laboratory work, the journal offers new tools for research and emphasizes the immediate practical significance of the featured work. It publishes primary research papers and reviews recent technical and methodological advancements, with a particular interest in primary methods papers relevant to the biological and biomedical sciences. This includes methods rooted in chemistry with practical applications for studying biological problems.