CRISPR-Cas: A revolution in genome engineering

Genome Engineering The ability to engineer genomic DNA in cells and organisms easily and precisely will have major implications for basic biology research, medicine, and biotechnology. Doudna and Charpentier review the history of genome editing technologies, including oligonucleotide coupled to genome cleaving agents that rely on endogenous repair and recombination systems to complete the targeted changes, self-splicing introns, and zinc-finger nucleases and TAL effector nucleases. They then describe how clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPRs), and their associated (Cas) nucleases, were discovered to constitute an adaptive immune system in bacteria. They document development of the CRISPR-Cas system into a facile genome engineering tool that is revolutionizing all areas of molecular biology. Science , this issue [10.1126/science.1258096][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1258096