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Originally published in Science Express on 29 October 2009
Science 11 December 2009:
Vol. 326. no. 5959, p. 1501
DOI: 10.1126/science.1178817
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A Simple Cipher Governs DNA Recognition by TAL Effectors

Matthew J. Moscou and Adam J. Bogdanove*

TAL effectors of plant pathogenic bacteria in the genus Xanthomonas bind host DNA and activate genes that contribute to disease or turn on defense. Target specificity depends on an effector-variable number of typically 34 amino acid repeats, but the mechanism of recognition is not understood. We show that a repeat-variable pair of residues specifies the nucleotides in the target site, one pair to one nucleotide, with no apparent context dependence. Our finding represents a previously unknown mechanism for protein-DNA recognition that explains TAL effector specificity, enables target site prediction, and opens prospects for use of TAL effectors in research and biotechnology.

Department of Plant Pathology and Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ajbog{at}iastate.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
DNA Binding Made Easy.
D. F. Voytas and J. K. Joung (2009)
Science 326, 1491-1492
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)