BioCentury
ARTICLE | Preclinical News

Paper describes inducible CRISPR

June 29, 2017 11:04 PM UTC

In a Nature Communications study published Wednesday, Harvard professor David Liu and colleagues described a new method to control activation of gene editing technologies with small molecule-inducible guide RNAs. The team designed the inducible guides by embedding an aptazyme into the structure to control when and where CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9)-mediated gene editing is active.

As CRISPR-Cas9 therapeutics move toward the clinic, off-target activity of the gene editing tools is a lingering concern. One way to stem off-target edits is to create inducible variants of the CRISPR components. The idea is that activity of inducible CRISPR machinery can be restricted to target tissues and can prevent edits at off-target sites that happen when Cas9 lingers in a cell after making its intended cuts. ...