The serine recombinases differ mechanistically from the tyrosine recombinases and include proteins such as ϕC31 integrase which, unlike Cre and Flp, promote unidirectional reactions. The serine recombinase family is large and includes many other proteins besides ϕC31 integrase with the potential to be widely used in genome engineering. Here we review the details of the mechanism of the reactions promoted by the serine recombinases and discuss how these not only limit the utility of this class of recombinase but also creates opportunities for the engineering of new enzymes. We discuss the unanswered questions posed by genome engineering experiments in a variety of systems in which the serine recombinases have been used and finally describe more recently discovered serine recombinases that have the potential to be used in genome engineering.
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