Improving CRISPR-Cas nuclease specificity using truncated guide RNAs.

Reducing the target complementarity from 20, to 18 or 17 bases, greatly reduces off-target cleavage while not reducing on-target cleavage.  This counterintuitive result bodes well for simpler use of CRISPR targets and may reduce the need for the paired-nickase approach.

Improving CRISPR-Cas nuclease specificity using truncated guide RNAs.

• Yanfang Fu,
• Jeffry D Sander,
• Deepak Reyon,
• Vincent M Cascio
• & J Keith Joung

• Nature Biotechnology  (2014)  doi:10.1038/nbt.2808 Received 17 November 2013 Accepted 06 January 2014 Published online 26 January 2014