Site-specific recombinases and their essential role in synthetic biology.

Authors

Fang Ba, Qing Sun

Published in

Biotechnology advances. Pages 109005. Aug 08, 2026. Epub Aug 08, 2026.

Abstract

Site-specific recombinases, enzymes that bind to specific DNA attachment sites and catalyze DNA rearrangement reactions resulting in permanent and heritable genetic modifications, have emerged as powerful tools in synthetic biology. Their broad applications in genome engineering, genetic circuit design, DNA assembly, and computational design have significantly advanced the field over the past decades. To provide a systematic overview of both fundamental concepts and recent progress, this review comprehensively summarizes site-specific recombinases across enzyme categories, structural mechanisms, key characteristics of individual recombinases, recombination models, engineering strategies, and diverse functional applications. We anticipate that continued discovery, characterization, and engineering of site-specific recombinases will further accelerate the development of synthetic biology and support the establishment of more robust, versatile, and practical genetic toolboxes for future applications.

PMID:
42570711
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 09 Aug 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.