
Unlocking CRISPR's Potential: Meet SMART Templates That Expand Editing Reach 10×!
2025-05-21
Author: Arjun
The CRISPR Revolution Gets a Major Upgrade
CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing has been a game-changer, yet its effectiveness is often limited by the necessity of a nearby PAM (protospacer adjacent motif) site. A groundbreaking team from The Scripps Research Institute has introduced SMART (silently mutate and repair template), a revolutionary method that significantly extends the editable range of CRISPR targets without modifying the enzyme itself. This breakthrough, detailed in Nature Communications, showcases in vivo protein labeling in the retina and paves the way for exciting new therapeutic and research opportunities.
Why CRISPR Needed a Smarter Solution
Even though CRISPR/Cas9 is widely lauded, the technology's reliance on an accessible PAM sequence proves to be a limiting factor. This constraint hinders precise genetic modifications such as inserting tags or rectifying point mutations. While creating new PAM-flexible variants of Cas9 is theoretically feasible, it’s often time-consuming, expensive, and inefficient. Our objective was to design a solution leveraging the existing Cas9 proteins while cleverly enhancing the repair template.