TAL recognition code for DNA and TALEN
Código TAL de reconocimiento de ADN y TALEN
- Date
- 2009-2010 · confidence high
- Place
- Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
- Credited to
- Jens Boch and Ulla Bonas (Halle); Matthew Moscou and Adam Bogdanove (Iowa); Michelle Christian and Daniel Voytas (Minnesota)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Two groups deciphered in 2009 the code by which TAL effectors of the plant bacterium Xanthomonas recognise DNA, with one 34-amino-acid module per base. Fused to the FokI nuclease (TALEN, 2010), they made it possible to programme cuts in almost any sequence more easily than zinc fingers.
The code was published simultaneously by Boch et al. (Halle, Science, 2009) and Moscou and Bogdanove (Iowa); the first functional TALEN is by Christian et al. (Minnesota, Genetics, 2010). It is assigned to Halle as the first decipherer of the code.
What it led to
- gene editing in plants, animals and human cells before CRISPR
- first gene-editing therapy for a baby's leukaemia (TALEN-edited T cells, 2015)
- high-oleic soybean oil (Calyxt) as the first commercial gene-edited food (2019)