Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Prime editing GEMMs to model cancer mutations

Nature Reviews Cancer (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Preclinical models of cancer mutations are crucial for advancing precision oncology. Existing genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) represent only a minority of the various cancer alleles found in human tumours. CRISPR–Cas9 and base editors have accelerated the generation of new GEMMs, but these techniques have key limitations. CRISPR–Cas9 excels at gene disruption, but inefficiently installs templated single nucleotide variants (SNVs). SNVs comprise over 80% of somatic cancer mutations in clinical sequencing datasets, such as MSK-IMPACT. Base editors install SNVs efficiently; however, they require unique enzymes for a desired edit (for example, adenine base editors to convert A•T to G•C), generate bystander mutations, and cannot install most multinucleotide variants or insertions or deletions (indels).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

Original article

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Nicolas Mathey-Andrews

Authors
  1. Nicolas Mathey-Andrews
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicolas Mathey-Andrews.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mathey-Andrews, N. Prime editing GEMMs to model cancer mutations. Nat Rev Cancer (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-023-00627-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-023-00627-w

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Cancer

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Cancer newsletter — what matters in cancer research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get what matters in cancer research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Cancer