Kumi Morikawa, Kazuhiro Furuhashi, Carmen de Sena-Tomas, Alvaro L Garcia-Garcia, Ramsey Bekdash, Alison D Klein, Nicholas Gallerani, Hannah E Yamamoto, Seon-Hye E Park, Grant S Collins, Fuun Kawano, Moritoshi Sato, Chyuan-Sheng Lin, Kimara L Targoff, Edmund Au, Michael C Salling, Masayuki Yazawa
Optogenetic genome engineering tools enable spatiotemporal control of gene expression and provide new insight into biological function. Here, we report the new version of genetically encoded photoactivatable (PA) Cre recombinase, PA-Cre 3.0. To improve PA-Cre technology, we compare light-dimerization tools and optimize for mammalian expression using a CAG promoter, Magnets, and 2A self-cleaving peptide. To prevent background recombination caused by the high sequence similarity in the dimerization domains, we modify the codons for mouse gene targeting and viral production...
May 1, 2020: Nature Communications