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TALENs: a widely applicable technology for targeted genome editing

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 14, pages 49–55 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Engineered nucleases enable the targeted alteration of nearly any gene in a wide range of cell types and organisms. The newly-developed transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) comprise a nonspecific DNA-cleaving nuclease fused to a DNA-binding domain that can be easily engineered so that TALENs can target essentially any sequence. The capability to quickly and efficiently alter genes using TALENs promises to have profound impacts on biological research and to yield potential therapeutic strategies for genetic diseases.

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Figure 1: Overview of TALENs and TALE repeat arrays.
Figure 2: Nuclease-induced genome editing.

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Acknowledgements

J.K.J. acknowledges support from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) (grants DP1 GM105378, R01 GM088040 and P50 HG005550) and The Jim and Ann Orr Massachusetts General Hospital Research Scholar Award. J.D.S. was supported by the NIH grant T32CA009216. The authors apologize to colleagues whose studies were not cited due to length constraints.

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  1. Department of Pathology, J. Keith Joung and Jeffry D. Sander are at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Molecular Pathology Unit, the Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, and the Center for Cancer Research, Harvard Medical School, 149 13th Street, 6th floor, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA.,

    J. Keith Joung & Jeffry D. Sander

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Correspondence to J. Keith Joung.

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Competing interests

J. Keith Joung has a financial interest in Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals. His interests were reviewed and are managed by Massachusetts General Hospital and Partners HealthCare in accordance with their conflict of interest policies. J. Keith Joung and Jeffry D. Sander are inventors on a patent application describing the FLASH assembly method.

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Joung laboratory homepage

Addgene TALE reagent website

TALengineering newsgroup

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Joung, J., Sander, J. TALENs: a widely applicable technology for targeted genome editing. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 14, 49–55 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm3486

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