Concerns regarding ‘off-target’activity of genome editing endonucleases
Abstract
Genome editing (GE) tools ensure targeted mutagenesis and sequence-specific modification in plants using a wide resource of customized endonucleases; namely, zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and the CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)/Cas (CRISPR-associated protein) system. Among these, in recent times CRISPR/Cas9 has been widely used in functional genomics and plant genetic modification. A significant concern in the application of GE tools is the occurrence of 'off-target' activity and induced mutations, which may impede functional analysis and gene activity studies. Moreover, the 'off-target' activity results in either not reported or unknown, difficult to detect, produce non-quantifiable cellular signaling and physiological effects. In the past few years, several experimental methods have been developed to identify undesired mutations and to curtail 'off-target' cleavage. Improvement in target specificity and minimizing 'off-target' activity will offer better applications of GE technology in plant biology and crop improvement.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
First-generation CRISPR-based gene editing tools face challenges including specificity, targeting scope, dependency on endogenous DSB repair mechanisms, absence of efficient delivery methods, lack of effective vectors, rigidity of cell or organisms, and off-target activity.
“The first-generation CRISPR-based gene editing tools face several challenges, including specificity, targeting scope, dependency on endogenous DSB repair mechanisms, absence of efficient delivery methods, lack of effective vectors and rigidity of cell or organisms, off-target activity, etc. (Kadam et al., 2018; Martin et al., 2024).”
From Emerging applications of gene editing technologies for the development of climate-resilient crops (2025) · cites this paper as Kadam et al., 2018
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 115 · Cited by 47
- Authors
- Kadam, U. S., Shelake, R. M., Chavhan, R. L., & Suprasanna, P.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology (DE)
- Gyeongsang National University (KR)
- Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Kadam, Ulhas Sopanrao
- Venue
- Plant Physiology and Biochemistry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-10
- Volume
- 131
- Pages
- 22-30
- ISSN
- 0981-9428 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2794994320
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 115
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 0.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Science and Engineering Research Board (YSS/2015/000616)
- DST, Government of India, New Delhi
- National Research Foundation of Korea, Republic of Korea (2017R1A4A1015515)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › CRISPR and Genetic Engineering
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Genetically Modified Organisms Research
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant Genetic and Mutation Studies
- Keywords
- genome editing, off-target effects, CRISPR/Cas9, zinc finger nucleases, TALEN, plant genetic engineering, target specificity, crop improvement, functional genomics
- MeSH terms
- Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases, Gene Editing, Endonucleases, Genetic Engineering, Plants, Genome, Plant, CRISPR-Cas Systems
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
