Crispr Cas9 molecular scissors

Computational biologists at the Institute for Basic Science (Daejeon, South Korea) have identified thirteen different variations of Streptococcus pyogenes Cas 9 enzymes for gene editing.  “This study surpassed all previous reports, which had evaluated only up to three Cas9 systems. IBS researchers compared 13 SpCas9 variants and defined which four-nucleotide sequences can be used as protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) — a short DNA sequence that is required for Cas9 to cut and is positioned immediately after the DNA sequence targeted for cleavage.”  The aim of this is to find the specific enzymes and DNA sequences that minimize off targeting.    MORE

Image Credit:  Max Planck Institute