CRISPR tagged posts

A transmission electron micrograph image of the Zika virus. Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Scientists potentially have found a way to disrupt Zika and similar viruses from spreading in the body. A team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified a single gene pathway that is vital for Zika and other flaviviruses to spread infection between cells. Further, they showed that shutting down a single gene in this pathway – in both human and insect cells – does not negatively affect the cells themselves and renders flaviviruses unable to leave the infected cell, curbing the spread of infection.

Michael Diamond, MD, PhD, the Herbert S...

Highlights • Inducible CRISPRi iPSCs provide a valuable resource for rapid gene knockdown • CRISPRi knockdown is efficient, tunable, and reversible in iPSCs • CRISPRi knockdown is highly specific • CRISPRi enables disease modeling in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes

CRISPR interference system inhibits rather than cuts the genome to suppress genes in stem cells, improving efficiency and precision of CRISPR-Cas9. Combining the 2 most powerful biological tools of the 21st century, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have modified how the genome of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) is read for the first time using a variation of the CRISPR-Cas9 system. The development offers a major technological advance in creating cell models of genetic diseases.

The researchers used a modified ve...

Correction of RPGR mutation in patient iPSC line.

CUMC and Uni of Iowa scientists have used CRISPR, to repair a genetic mutation responsible for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), an inherited condition that causes the retina to degrade and leads to blindness in at least 1.5 million cases worldwide. It marks the first time researchers have replaced a defective gene associated with a sensory disease in stem cells that were derived from a patient’s tissue.

“Our vision is to develop a personalized approach to treating eye disease,” says A/Prof Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD. “We still have some way to go, but we believe that the first therapeutic use of CRISPR will be to treat an eye disease. Here we have demonstrated that the initial steps are feasible...

Cancer cells growing in a dish

Scientists have mapped out the genes that keep our cells alive, creating a long-awaited foothold for understanding how our genome works and which genes are crucial in disease like cancer. A team of Toronto researchers have switched off, one by one, almost 18,000 genes – 90% of the entire human genome – to find the genes that are essential for cell survival. The data revealed a “core” set of more than 1,500 essential genes. This lays the foundation for reaching the long-standing goal in biomedical research of pinpointing a role for every single gene in the genome.

By turning genes off in 5 different cancer cell lines, including brain, retinal, ovarian, and 2 kinds of colorectal cancer cells, the team uncovered that each tumour relies on a unique set of genes t...