Press Releases
19.07.2018
Site-directed RNA editing as an alternative to genetic scissors
IFIB researchers develop an efficient method to edit cellular transcripts
The Stafforst lab demonstrated the efficient and precise editing of endogenous transcripts inside the cell. The method relies on an engineered protein, which is directed to the target transcript by a short guide RNA and catalyzes the conversion of certain bases. In collaboration with the group of Jin Billy Li at Stanford University, the IFIB researchers could show that the method makes only few mistakes and is many times more specific than competing methods, also ones based on Cas13. In contrast to genome editing, changes introduced in RNA can be considered reversible, which makes off-target mutations less severe and might be advantageous for future therapeutic applications. The results of the study are published in the July issue of Nature Methods.
Publication:
Vogel, P., Moschref, M., Li, Q., Merkle, T., Selvasaravanan, K. D., Li, J. B. & Stafforst,T. Efficient and precise editing of endogenous transcripts with SNAP-tagged ADARs. Nat. Methods 15, 535–538 (2018).
Contact information:
Professor Dr. Thorsten Stafforst
University of Tübingen
Interfaculty Institute of Biochemistry
Phone +49 7071 29-75376
thorsten.stafforst@uni-tuebingen.de