June 15, 2013 (Vol. 33, No. 12)
URL:
http://taleffectors.genome-engineering.org
Rating:
Strong Points: An active comments section and discussion forum
Weak Points: Only brief descriptions of applications and techniques
Summary:
The laboratory of Feng Zhang, Ph.D., at MIT has quite a nice website—and a useful one, too, if you are in the market for genome engineering resources. In particular, the TAL Effectors Resources page provides useful information for researchers interested in using (or who currently use) TALEs. TALEs are Transcription Activator Like Effector proteins that recognize specific sequences of DNA, and which have been custom-engineered to recognize DNA sequences of interest in plant and mammalian cells. The TAL Effectors Resources page not only gives an introduction to TALEs, but also describes two of the applications to genome engineering: TALE nucleases (TALENs) and TALE transcription factors (TALE-TFs). The protocols page of the site provides detailed instructions for assembling designer TALEs, complete with a reagents list. There are also links to other TALE-related sites.