Researchers find way to boost CRISPR-Cas9 efficiency by up to 5 times

Researchers find way to boost CRISPR-Cas9 efficiency by up to 5 times
Researchers have found a simple way to boost the efficiency of the ground-breaking gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 by up to five times.

Once Cas9 cuts, the cell exactly replaces the cut DNA, which Cas9 cuts again, in an endless cycle of cut and repair until the repair enzymes make a mistake and the gene ends up dysfunctional. Perhaps, he said, the oligonucleotides decrease the fidelity of the repair process, or make the cell switch to a more error-prone repair that allows Cas9 to more readily break the gene. With higher efficiency, researchers will have better success at creating the knockouts they want, and then using those knockout cell lines to explore the function of a gene or a group of genes. Because most long-lived cell lines are derived from cancer cells — including the very popular HeLa cell line — these cell lines typically have more than the normal two copies of each gene. This can make it difficult to knock out all copies at once, and higher efficiency greatly increases the chance of success. High efficiency also is essential when knocking out genes to correct hereditary mutations in humans. Physicians have speculated about knocking out genes that make people susceptible to infectious diseases, such as AIDS, or prone to autoimmune, inflammatory or neurodegenerative disorders. However, it remains to be seen whether the approach described by Corn and colleagues could be used in a therapeutic context. (Read: CRISPR/Cas9 screening reveals that Zika virus needs human proteins for survival)

Source: IANS

Photo source: Getty images (Images for representational purpose only)

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