Design, Science and Technology

Using CRISPR, an immune system bacteria use to protect themselves from viruses, scientists have harnessed the power to edit genetic information within cells.

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The gene editing technique CRISPR/Cas9 has allowed researchers to make precise and impactful changes to an organism's DNA to fix mutations that cause genetic disease.

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Commercially viable biofuel crops are vital to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and a new tool developed by the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation should accelerate their development -; as well as genetic editing advances overall.

 

CROPSR, the first open-source software tool for genome-wide design and evaluation of guide RNA (gRNA) sequences for CRISPR experiments, created by scientists at CABBI, a Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Center (BRC). The genome-wide approach significantly shortens the time required to design a CRISPR experiment, reducing the challenge of working with crops and accelerating gRNA sequence design, evaluation, and validation, according to the study published in BMC Bioinformatics.

 

"CROPSR provides the scientific community with new methods and a new workflow for performing CRISPR/Cas9 knockout experiments," said CROPSR developer Hans Müller Paul, a molecular biologist and Ph.D. student with co-author Matthew Hudson, Professor of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "We hope that the new software will accelerate discovery and reduce the number of failed experiments."

 

CROPSR developer Hans Müller Paul, a molecular biologist and Ph.D. student with co-author Matthew Hudson, Professor of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

To better meet the needs of crop geneticists, the team built software that lifts restrictions imposed by other packages on design and evaluation of gRNA sequences, the guides used to locate targeted genetic material. Team members also developed a new machine learning model that would not avoid guides for repetitive genomic regions often found in plants, a problem with existing tools. The CROPSR scoring model provided much more accurate predictions, even in non-crop genomes, the authors said.

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A new study highlights both the promise and the limitations of gene editing, as a highly lethal form of avian influenza continues to spread around the world.

 

Scientists have used the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR to create chickens that have some resistance to avian influenza, according to a new study that was published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday. The study suggests that genetic engineering could potentially be one tool for reducing the toll of bird flu, a group of viruses that pose grave dangers to both animals and humans. But the study also highlights the limitations and potential risks of the approach, scientists said. Some breakthrough infections still occurred, especially when gene-edited chickens were exposed to very high doses of the virus, the researchers found. And when the scientists edited just one chicken gene, the virus quickly adapted.

 

The findings suggest that creating flu-resistant chickens will require editing multiple genes and that scientists will need to proceed carefully to avoid driving further evolution of the virus, the study’s authors said. The research is “proof of concept that we can move toward making chickens resistant to the virus,” Wendy Barclay, a virologist at Imperial College London and an author of the study, said at a news briefing. “But we’re not there yet.” Some scientists who were not involved in the research had a different takeaway. “It’s an excellent study,” said Dr. Carol Cardona, an expert on bird flu and avian health at the University of Minnesota. But to Dr. Cardona, the results illustrate how difficult it will be to engineer a chicken that can stay a step ahead of the flu, a virus known for its ability to evolve swiftly. “There’s no such thing as an easy button for influenza,” Dr. Cardona said. “It replicates quickly, and it adapts quickly.”

What to Know About Avian Flu

The spread of H5N1. A new variant of this strain of the avian flu has spread widely through bird populations in recent years. It has taken an unusually heavy toll on wild birds and repeatedly spilled over into mammals, including minks, foxes and bears.

 

 

Research cited published in Nature Comm. (Oct. 10, 2023):

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41476-3 

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Rochester Institute of Technology researchers are improving non-invasive treatment options for degenerative disc disease, an ailment that impacts 3 million adults yearly in the U.S., according to the Mayo Clinic.

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