A set of genetic tools based on components of a bacterial immune system can make the process of adding, deleting or replacing specific genes in model organisms and human cells easier and more precise.
Current gene-editing enzymes are expensive and difficult to use. Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues developed an alternative method focusing on an enzyme, called Cas9, and two RNA molecules from a bacterial immune system known as CRISPR. These molecules work together to recognize and cut viral DNA. The team modified these molecules so that they could be used to edit human and mouse genomes at precise and even multiple locations.
George Church at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues showed that their CRISPR-based gene-editing system could be used in human cells, including reprogrammed stem cells.
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Precise genomic editing. Nature 493, 137 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/493137c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/493137c
