Hendel et al. (2015) have shown in Nature Biotechnology that certain chemical modifications to guide RNAs can enhance mutagenesis frequencies of the CRISPR/Cas9 system. Clearly, these types of enhancements, should they pan out to be effective beyond human cells, could […]
RNA
RNAe: Targeted Protein Translation Enhancement
In a recent paper in Nucleic Acid Research, Yao et al (2015) report on their efforts to develop a universal molecular tool for translation enhancement. Although the work was carried out in mammalian cells there may be possible applications to […]
Cas9 Against RNA Targets In Vivo
Price et al (2015) have recently published a paper in PNAS in which they report that Cas9 can be used as a RNA-targeting system. Clustered, regularly interspersed, short palindromic repeats-CRISPR associated (CRISPR-Cas) systems are a diverse collection of adaptive immune […]
Efficient Delivery of RNAi Prodrugs
Some insect scientists are thinking about dsRNA and siRNA as “insecticides” so it is not surprising that clinical medical researchers are thinking about them as “drugs”. If RNAi kills insects then they are insecticides; if they eliminate or alter a […]
CRISPR/Cas9 for RNA Cleavage
The CRISPR/Cas9 system is quickly becoming the most versatile method for modifying DNA targets, but researchers seeking equivalent control against RNA transcripts have been left behind. In a new paper by O’Connell et. al, (2014) the authors describe a clever […]