Designing and testing the activities of TAL effector nucleases

Abstract

Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) have rapidly developed into a powerful tool for genome editing. To avoid labor-intensive and time-consuming experimental screening for active TALENs, a scoring system can help select optimal target sites. Here we describe a procedure to design active TALENs using a scoring system named Scoring Algorithm for Predicted TALEN Activity (SAPTA) and a method to test the activity of individual and pairs of TALENs. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.