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An overview of currently available molecular CRISPR-Cas-tools for precise genome modification

The use of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome editing was first described in 2012, and last week the Nobel Prize was awarded to its creators, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Dudne. The way CRISPR-Cas works is based on the Cas nuclease's ability to bind short RNA, which directs it to a complementary DNA or RNA sequence for high-precision cleavage. This allows modifying targeted sequence in different ways.

Scientists around the world work to create modified variants to improve their specificity and efficiency for different objects. In addition, the use of the Cas effectors' targeting function in complex systems with other proteins is a promising area of work, as a result of which new tools are created with such features as single base editing, editing DNA without break and donor DNA, activation and repression of transcription, epigenetic regulation, modifying of different repair pathways involvement etc.

Researchers of the Genome Editing Laboratory (headed by S.A. Smirnikhina, Candidate of Medical Science) reviewed all existing new CRISPR-Cas tools. The highly rated foreign Gene journal published the data (Q2, impact factor 2.638).

Kondrateva E., Demchenko A., Lavrov A., Smirnikhina S. An overview of currently available molecular Cas-tools for precise genome modification. Gene, 2020, 145225,
10.1016/j.gene.2020.145225

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378111920308945