New CRISPR-Derived Base Editor 'smACGmax' Simultaneously Mutates Adenine, Cytosine, and Guanine

Researchers led by Liang Chen at East China Normal University (Shanghai) published smACGmax in Nature Communications (July 27, 2026; coverage by CRISPR Medicine News on August 17), a CRISPR-derived base editor that fuses a Cas9 nickase with engineered deaminases to simultaneously mutate adenine, cytosine, and guanine bases within the same DNA allele — without creating double-strand breaks. Earlier dual-base editors such as SPACE were limited to concurrent A-to-G and C-to-T conversions; smACGmax expands multi-base diversification for large-scale functional genetic screening, demonstrated on HBEGF and SF3B1 variants to identify disease-resistance mutations and cancer-associated variants.