2018 Vol. 9, No. 10

Base editors which enable highly efficient nucleotide substitutions without inducing DNA double-strand breaks have promising potential applications in various fields. In this issue of Protein & Cell, two independent groups demonstra-
ted highly efficient “A” to “G” conversions in mouse and rat embryos using the adenine base editor (ABE) technology. With the help of this powerful tool, Liang
et al. successfully generated a
new mouse Dunchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) model by mutating the base pairs involved in DMD gene mRNA splicing. In addition to making mouse and rat models using the ABE technology, Yang et al. reported expansion of the ABE targeting scope by fusion of the edTadA with different Cas9 variants. Moreover, they also demonstrated their method of increasing the ABE efficiency via using the chemically modified guide RNAs.