Crop Biotech Update

Researchers Develop Software Tool for Safer Gene Editing Design

October 25, 2023

A team of researchers has developed a software tool called DANGER (Deleterious and ANticipatable Guides Evaluated by RNA-sequencing) analysis. The tool provides a way to establish a safer genome editing design for all organisms with a transcriptome, including crops.

The DANGER analysis overcomes the challenges in using other genome editing tools, such as CRISPR, and allows researchers to perform safer on- and off-target assessments without a reference genome. It has potential applications in medicine, agriculture, and biological research.

The DANGER analysis pipeline identifies the genomic on- and off-target sites based on de novo transcriptome assembly using RNA-sequencing data. With de novo transcriptome assembly, the transcriptome is assembled without the help of a reference genome. Next, the DANGER analysis identifies the deleterious off-targets. Finally, the software quantifies the phenotypic risk using the gene ontology of the deleterious off-targets. The team hopes to expand their research and use DANGER analysis to various genome editing samples from patients and crops to clarify the phenotypic effect and establish safer strategies for genome editing.

For more details, read the article on Hiroshima University website.


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