CRISPR-offinder: a CRISPR guide RNA design and off-target searching tool for user-defined protospacer adjacent motif

Designing efficient and specific CRISPR single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) is vital for the successful application of CRISPR technology. Currently, a growing number of new RNA-guided endonucleases with a different protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) have been discovered, suggesting the necessity to develop a versatile tool for designing sgRNA to meet the requirement of different RNA-guided DNA endonucleases. Here, we report the development of a flexible sgRNA design program named “CRISPR-offinder”. Support for user-defined PAM and sgRNA length was provided to increase the targeting range and specificity. Additionally, evaluation of on- and off-target scoring algorithms was integrated into the CRISPR-offinder. The CRISPR-offinder has provided the bench biologist a rapid and efficient tool for identification of high quality target sites, and it is freely available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/crispr-offinder-v1-2/ or http://www.biootools.com.