Engineered genomic attachment sites for site-specific recombinases enable high-efficiency integration in plants and human cells.

Engineered attB(V111) site achieves up to 51.9% integration efficiency in human cells and 35.6% in rice, greatly enhancing site-specific recombination in plants and human cells.

• Why it matters: Efficient, precise genome editing remains a challenge for both plant and human systems, limiting advances in gene therapy and crop improvement. Improving recombinase activity can enable safer, more reliable genetic modifications.
• What they did: The team designed chimeric attachment sites and paired them with engineered recombinase proteins, testing over 50 variants in human cells and rice protoplasts to optimize integration efficiency.
• The result: The optimized system enabled targeted, heritable gene insertions with high specificity, supporting its potential as a safe, broadly applicable tool for genome engineering in diverse organisms.