Zinc Finger bound to DNAWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, THOMAS SPLETTSTOESSER
Zinc finger nucleases are designed to be like heat-seeking missiles, precisely targeted to find and cut specific sequences of DNA. Occasionally, however, they may snip the wrong spot, causing unintended breaks. Two papers published today (August 7) in Nature journals describe ways to systematically find such off-target action, which could one day help design gene therapies that avoid collateral damage.
“Until this time there hasn’t been a really comprehensive way of defining zinc finger nuclease specificity,” said Carlos Barbas, a chemical biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who was not involved in the study. “As we begin to treat patients with zinc finger nucleases and modify genomes, we need to know where those modifications are being made.”
Zinc fingers, so named ...
