International Journal of Molecular Sciences Review Approaches to Enhance Precise CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Genome Editing Christopher E. Denes 1,† , Alexander J. Cole 2,3,†, Yagiz Alp Aksoy 4,5,†, Geng Li 1, Graham Gregory Neely 1,2,* and Daniel Hesselson 2,3,* 1 The Dr. John and Anne Chong Lab for Functional Genomics, Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life & Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia;
[email protected] (C.E.D.);
[email protected] (G.L.) 2 Centenary Institute, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia;
[email protected] 3 Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 4 Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia;
[email protected] 5 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2113, Australia * Correspondence:
[email protected] (G.G.N.);
[email protected] (D.H.) † These authors contributed equally. Abstract: Modification of the human genome has immense potential for preventing or treating disease. Modern genome editing techniques based on CRISPR/Cas9 show great promise for altering disease- relevant genes. The efficacy of precision editing at CRISPR/Cas9-induced double-strand breaks is dependent on the relative activities of nuclear DNA repair pathways, including the homology- directed repair and error-prone non-homologous end-joining pathways. The competition between multiple DNA repair pathways generates mosaic and/or therapeutically undesirable editing out- Citation: Denes, C.E.; Cole, A.J.; comes. Importantly, genetic models have validated key DNA repair pathways as druggable targets Aksoy, Y.A.; Li, G.; Neely, G.G.; for increasing editing efficacy.