Anticipating and Identifying Collateral Damage in Genome Editing

Abstract

Genome editing has a transformative potential in healthcare or to improve crops or livestock. However, the use of Cas9 or other nucleases can yield unpredictable events at the target site or off target.

To overcome these challenge, it is critical to understand and accurately predict the whole range of possible editing outcomes.

The key to success is to combine molecular assays to evaluate the sequence changes at the target site and to quantify the number of copies of segments deleted/inserted across the genome.

For all applications, thorough evaluation of these outcomes is essential to identify all collateral damage from nuclease activity and for a real appraisal of the benefits and risks associated with applying this technology. Show more