CRISPR RNAs trigger innate immune responses in human cells
- Journal:
- Genome Research
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1101/gr.231936.117
- Affiliations:
- 5
- Authors:
- 8
Research Highlight
Fending off immune attacks to CRISPR
© VICTOR HABBICK VISIONS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty
A chemical tweak to one component of the CRISPR gene-editing platform could help neutralize the threat posed by immune reactions to the popular DNA-engineering technique.
A team from South Korea, led by researchers from the Institute for Basic Science, showed that human and mouse cells recognized lab-synthesized ‘guide RNA’ — short sequences that lead DNA-cutting enzymes to specific places in the genome — as foreign and mount innate immune responses against them, leading to cell death.
This problem could be simply mitigated, however, by adding an enzyme that removes a trio of chemical tags — a relic of lab-made RNA synthesis — from the front end of the guide molecule. The team found that pre-treating guide RNAs in this way led to more efficient gene editing in human T cells, highlighting the potential of a simple way to make CRISPR safer for therapeutic applications.
References
- Genome Research (2018). doi: 10.1101/gr.231936.117
| Institutions | Authors | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Division of Interdisciplinary, IBS, South Korea | 0.42 | |
| National Medical Center, South Korea | 0.38 | |
| University of Science and Technology (UST), South Korea | 0.17 | |
| Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea | 0.04 |