New Gene Editing Record Made With 13200 Edits In Single Human Cell
Since its creation, CRISPR has allowed scientists to perform DNA changes at particular locations in a genome that can be done only once at a time. Now a group of researchers at the Harvard University says it has used the technique to create 13,200 genetic alterations to a single cell creating a New Gene Editing Record.
Using a modified version of CRISPR, a team of geneticists has successfully triggered 13,200 genetic modifications to a single human cell. That is a new record, by a long shot. This new editing process could be used to strip DNA of useless or dangerous genetic information–or create completely new kinds of life.
The team, headed by gene technologist George Church, wants to rewrite genomes at a far bigger scale than has currently been potential, something it states could finally contribute to the”radical redesign” of species–even humans.
Large-scale gene editing of this sort was tried before. In 2017, an Australian group headed by Paul Thomas peppered the Y chromosome of mice with edits and succeeded in hammering it from existence. That strategy is being eyed as a possible treatment for Down syndrome, a hereditary
disorder brought on by an extra chromosome.These genetic elements, which are able to copy themselves, are estimated to account for around 17% of our genome.
Since CRISPR cuts open the double helix, making a lot of edits simultaneously will kill a cell. This threat has restricted past attempts at large-scale editing. Geoff Faulkner, of the University of Queensland in Australia, states in 2016 he tried knocking out LINE elements in 500 mouse embryos, hoping to determine if this would influence mouse behavior. But no such mice lived to reproduce.
To prevent this problem, the Harvard team instead adopted a variation of CRISPR known as a base editor that avoids cutting DNA and instead replaces one genetic correspondence with a different –say, turning a C to a T.
According to their paper published in March to the preprint website BioRxiv, the team managed to make over 13,000 changes simultaneously in certain cells without destroying them.
“They found a means to do the experiment without causing gross genome-wide instability,” Faulkner says.
Other scientists were impressed, stating the work is not the”enabling” measure for large-scale genome editing it is promoted to be.
Church, however, sees large-scale editing as a way to clean up genomes by simply removing the genetic junk they contain. In 2015, for example, the laboratory zapped all 62 copies of a retrovirus that lurks within the genomes of pigs. Such viruses can reactivate, hence creating monkeys without them is a safety measure toward pig-to-human organ transplants.
A firm spun from the laboratory, eGenesis, is already creating pigs with scores of edits so their organs can be tolerated by individual transplant recipients.
As reported in MIT Review Church says his eventual purpose is to create supplies of human organs or tissues whose genomes are substituted so they are immune to viruses. That process, known as recoding, would entail about 9,811 precise genetic modifications, according to the team. Church says the laboratory has started the process of recoding supplies of their own cells in the lab. “These are meant to be secure… and universal stem cells,” he states.
