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CRISPR tool modifies genes precisely by copying RNA into the genome

The ultimate goal of genome editing is to be able to make any specific change to the blueprint of life. A ‘search-and-replace’ method for genome editing takes us a giant leap closer to this ambitious goal.
  1. Randall J. Platt

    1. Randall J. Platt is in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.

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Variation in the DNA sequences that constitute the blueprint of life is essential to the fitness of any species, yet thousands of DNA alterations are thought to cause disease. After decades of research in genetics and molecular biology, tremendous progress has been made in developing genome-editing tools for correcting such alterations. But a seemingly fundamental limit to the efficiency and precision of gene editing was reached, owing to the tools’ reliance on complex and competing cellular processes. Writing in Nature, Anzalone et al.1 describe ‘search-and-replace’ genome editing, in which the marriage of two molecular machines enables the genome to be altered precisely. The technique has immediate and profound implications for the biomedical sciences.

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Nature 576, 48-49 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03392-9

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