Research team broadens utility of more compact CRISPR-Cas9 by increasing its targeting range

Investigators have shown that a method they developed to improve the usefulness and precision of the most common form of the gene-editing tools CRISPR-Cas9 RNA-guided nucleases can be applied to Cas9 enzymes from other bacterial sources. They report evolving a variant of SaCas9 - the Cas9 enzyme from the Streptococcus aureus bacteria - that recognizes a broader range of nucleotide sequences, allowing targeting of genomic sites previously inaccessible to CRISPR-Cas9 technology.