Hairpin RNA increases CRISPR accuracy 50-fold

American researchers have shown that adding a small element of secondary structure to the guide RNA can significantly increase the accuracy of DNA editing by CRISPR systems. As the scientists explain in an article in Nature Biotechnology, the hairpin RNA interferes with the nuclease activity of the Cas protein on the “wrong” targets, but does not interfere in case of an exact sequence match between the guide RNA and the target.