Tth Argonaute (TtAgo)- The first programmable, ssDNA-dependent Endonuclease.
Tth Argonaute (TtAgo) is a new and exciting prokaryotic enzyme that may open up your mind to new ideas.
RNA interference has been widely described in eukaryotes involving small single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) molecules that guide proteins of the Argonaute (Ago) family to complementary RNA targets in order to suppress their functions.
TtAgo of the bacterium Thermus thermophilus is a DNA-guided endonuclease that cleaves complementary DNA-strands and thus can be described as DNA-guided DNA interference. Unlike CRISPR/Cas9 targeted gene editing, TtAgo’s targeted sequence selection is not limited by the requirement of an adjacent sequence motif. TtAgo can be programmed using a single-stranded DNA-guide comprised of a short 5’-phosphorylated oligonucleotide.
Once activated, TtAgo induces one break in the complementary DNA substrate. Thus, the prokaryotic Tth Argonaute represents an exciting tool for genome editing applications and is the first commercially available DNA-guided DNA-endonuclease for in vitro
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