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REVIEW article

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Synthetic Biology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1478413

There and turn back again: the application of phage serine integrases in eukaryotic systems

Provisionally accepted
Thais Torquato Sales Thais Torquato Sales 1,2Marco Antônio De Oliveira Marco Antônio De Oliveira 1,2Lilian Hasegawa Florentino Lilian Hasegawa Florentino 1,2Rayane Nunes Lima Rayane Nunes Lima 1Elibio Rech Elibio Rech 1*
  • 1 Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology/National Institute of Science and Technology in Synthetic Biology, Brasília, Brazil
  • 2 University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Serine integrases (Ints) have gained prominence and have been extensively used in Synthetic Biology due to their ability to modify DNA sequences. Ints are recombinases encoded by the phage genome and have been used to unidirectionally catalyze an insertion, excision, or inversion of a specific DNA sequence between the two attachment sites (att) attB (bacterial attachment site) and attP (phage attachment site). The entire process is highly specific and accurate; therefore, Ints are widely used in genetic engineering and have been extensively studied due to their unique site-specific recombination properties and potential genome editing applications. Furthermore, new recombinational factors (RDFs) and their determinants are constantly being discovered, underlining the need to update progress in research involving Ints in eukaryotic cells. In this way, this review aims to provide an overview of Ints in eukaryotic cells and highlight how Ints can be used in innovative ways to advance genetic engineering applications in health, agriculture, and environmental sciences. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT Moving beyond bacteria: unraveling the mechanisms of phage serine integrases in eukaryotic cells to drive biotechnological research, genome editing and therapeutic applications. Created with Canva Pro.

    Keywords: Serine integrase, eukaryotic cell, Phage (bacteriophage), Synthetic Biology, Genome edition tools

    Received: 09 Aug 2024; Accepted: 03 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Sales, De Oliveira, Hasegawa Florentino, Lima and Rech. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Elibio Rech, Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology/National Institute of Science and Technology in Synthetic Biology, Brasília, Brazil

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.