Characterizing off-target effects of genome editors

Programmable base editors and prime editors offer the potential for highly efficient and precise genome manipulation. However, in order to safely apply these editors in clinical settings, it is essential to comprehensively characterize their off-target effects. In this review, we introduce some representative technologies for assessing off-target effects on both the genome and transcriptome and gain insight into the off-target effects of these genome editors. Importantly, we also discuss the limitations of the current off-target assessment methods for both ex vivo and in vivo biomedical applications and highlight the need to develop comprehensive and tailored off-target assessing methods which will be crucial for advancing the safe and effective gene editing applications launched by therapeutic companies and research groups.