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![]() During tumorigenesis, tumors must evolve to evade the immune system and do so by disrupting the genes involved in antigen processing and presentation or up-regulating inhibitory immune checkpoint
BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Tumor suppressor genes block cell growth, preventing cancer cells from spreading. Scientists believe that mutations in these genes allow tumors to flourish unchecked. Now, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Stephen Elledge's team has discovered a surprising new action for many of these faulty genes. Elledge had a hunch that defective tumor suppressor genes were doing something more than speeding up tumor cell growth. From a list of 7,500 genes, her team used CRISPR to engineer thousands of tumor cells. Each was missing a functional version of one of these genes. The researchers placed the cells in two types of mice: those with an immune system and those without. Then the team studied the tumors that developed. Elledge's method revealed the many different genes that tumors can mutate to evade the body's defenses. To explore the possible mechanisms triggered by the mutations, the researchers focused on a gene called GNA13. The gene's mutation protects cancer cells from the immune system's T cells, creating a safe space for the tumor to grow. According to the study, more than 100 mutated tumor suppressor genes can prevent the immune system from identifying and destroying malignant cells in mice.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis launched a lottery-style program to give away doses of its pricey gene therapy for free, drawing criticism from patient groups.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Australia has approved the use of CRISPR gene editing tool on plants and animals without the oversight of a governmental body. The controversial move has been called a 'middle ground' compared to regulations on other countries.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Police to investigate He Jiankui after last year’s claim to have altered the DNA of twin girls
![]() Research published in Nature Medicine shows first example of base-editing tool to correct a disease in utero in animal models.
BigField GEG Tech's insight:
For the first time, scientists have performed prenatal gene editing to prevent a lethal metabolic disorder in laboratory animals, offering the potential to treat human congenital diseases before birth. Published today in Nature Medicine, research from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania offers proof-of-concept for prenatal use of a sophisticated, low-toxicity tool that efficiently edits DNA building blocks in disease-causing genes.
![]() OHSU discovery could accelerate development of new gene therapies for Batten disease.
BigField GEG Tech's insight:
OHSU scientists have discovered a naturally occurring disease in monkeys that mimics a deadly childhood neurodegenerative disorder in people – a finding that holds promise for developing new gene therapies to treat Batten disease.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Transplanting engineered neural cells into the brain of an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) animal model delayed disease progression and extended the animals’ survival, a study shows.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
The ability to clone monkeys will rekindle speculation about doing the same with humans. There are many reasons to oppose it, says Marcy Darnovsky
![]() CRISPR/Cas9-mediated noncoding RNA editing in human cancers. RNA Biology. Accepted 8 October 2017. doi: 10.1080/15476286.2017.1391443
BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Here, the authors focused on the applications of CRISPR/Cas9 system as a molecular tool for ncRNA (microRNA, long noncoding RNA and circular RNA, etc.) editing in human cancers, and the novel techniques that are based on CRISPR/Cas9 system. Additionally, the off-target effects and the corresponding solutions as well as the challenges toward CRISPR/Cas9 were also evaluated and discussed. Long- and short-ncRNAs have been employed as targets in precision oncology, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated ncRNA editing may provide an excellent way to cure cancer.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
In this study, the authors employed the CRISPR/Cas9 system to target the BLG locus in goat fibroblasts for sgRNA optimization and generate BLG knock-out goats through co-injection of Cas9 mRNA and small guide RNAs (sgRNAs) into goat embryos at the one-cell stage. This study thus provides a basis for optimizing the quality of goat milk, which can be applied to biomedical and agricultural research.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
In the present study, the CRISPR/Cas system was used to target the Tph2 gene in Bama mini pig fetal fibroblasts. It was found that CRISPR/Cas9 targeting efficiency could be as high as 61.5%, and the biallelic mutation efficiency reached at 38.5%. The biallelic modified colonies were used as donors for somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) and 10 Tph2 targeted piglets were successfully generated. These Tph2 KO piglets were viable and appeared normal at the birth. However, their central 5-HT levels were dramatically reduced, and their survival and growth rates were impaired before weaning. These Tph2 KO pigs are valuable large-animal models for studies of 5-HT deficiency induced behavior abnomality.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Here, the scientists describe the generation of transgenic, inducible CRISPR-based mouse systems to engineer and study recurrent colon cancer-associated EIF3E-RSPO2 and PTPRK-RSPO3 chromosome rearrangements in vivo. |
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
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Cancer and many other diseases are based on genetic defects. The body can often compensate for the defect of one gene; it is only the combination of several genetic errors that leads to the clinical picture.
BigField GEG Tech's insight:
The combination of several genetic errors leads to the development of cancer and many other diseases based on genetic abnormalities. The 3Cs multiplex technique based on CRISPR-CAS technology developed at the Frankfurt Goethe University now offers the possibility to simulate combinations of millions of genetic defects and to study their effects in cell culture. Scientists at the Institute for Biochemistry II at Goethe University have enhanced the 3Cs technique which they developed and patented three years ago. 3Cs stands for covalent-closed circular-synthesized, because of the RNA parts used for CRISPR-CAS are produced with the help of a circular synthesis and are thus distributed more uniformly. With an entire library of such RNA rings, any gene in a cell can be specially addressed to change or cut it. The new 3Cs multiplex technique now even allows the simultaneous manipulation of two genes in one cell. This technique thus makes it possible to search very efficiently in cell culture experiments for genes that play a major role in cancer, and also in diseases of the nervous and immune systems, and that could be the potential target of certain treatments. certain treatments.
![]() Two pig-monkey chimeras were born in China but died within a week. This is the first time live pigs have been created that contain some primate cells https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13238-019-00676-8
BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Pig-primate chimeras have been born live for the first time but died within a week. The two piglets, created by a team in China, looked normal although a small proportion of their cells were derived from cynomolgus monkeys. “This is the first report of full-term pig-monkey chimeras,” says Tang Hai at the State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology in Beijing.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Biologists have embraced CRISPR’s ability to quickly and cheaply modify the genomes of popular model organisms, such as mice, fruit flies and monkeys. Now they are trying the tool on more-exotic species, many of which have never been reared in a lab or had their genomes analysed. “We finally are ready to start expanding what we call a model organism,” says Tessa Montague, a molecular biologist at Columbia University in New York City. But the practical challenges of breeding and maintaining unconventional lab animals persist.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Researchers have developed a comprehensive way to evaluate how immune responses of humanized mice measure up to actual humans. Findings from the new study were published recently in Nature Communications through an article titled “Selective expansion of myeloid and NK cells in humanized mice yields human-like vaccine responses.”
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
On Wednesday, researchers from University of Texas Medical Branch published a new paper in the journal Science Translational Medicine. In it, they detail their latest milestone along the path to creating lab-grown lungs for humans: they can now successfully transplant these bioengineered lungs into pigs.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Knock-in mice with precise insertions are efficiently generated through delivery of CRISPR–Cas9 to two-cell embryos.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Researchers from Columbia University found in 2017 that Crispr can cause genetic mutations and they have now been forced to accept their study was wrong and Crispr is harmless.
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From
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Genetically editing pig genomes may make them better able to tolerate cold and produce lower fat bacon and pork
BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Raising pigs for food is a tricky business—mostly because of their fat, the part that makes bacon so tasty. You can’t plump them up too much, because overly fat pigs are more expensive to raise. Since they’re not as efficient at burning body fat, they require more energy—in the form of heated pens and barns—to keep them warm. Yet too-skinny pigs aren’t able to regulate their body temperature properly and tend to die when temperatures drop. Farmers have to find a way to keep their pigs healthy but plump enough to produce meat.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Researchers have used the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing tool in mice to disrupt a gene that causes glaucoma. As they also were able to target the gene in human eye cultures, the researchers said their study suggests CRISPR/Cas9 editing could work in the eye.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
The present work demonstrates that multiplex embryo transfer and multiplex gene targeting can be used to quickly and efficiently generate mutant rabbit founders. Four lines of SGM (e.g. FOXN1, RAG2, IL2RG, and PRKDC) immunodeficient rabbits, as well as multigenic mutant immunodeficient rabbits have been produced. These animals may prove useful for biomedical research.
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BigField GEG Tech's insight:
Xenotransplantation is a promising strategy to alleviate the shortage of organs for human transplantation. Here, the scientists confirmed the risk of cross-species transmission of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs), and observed the horizontal transfer of PERVs among human cells. Using CRISPR-Cas9, they inactivated all the PERVs in a porcine primary cell line and generated PERV-inactivated pigs via somatic cell nuclear transfer. This study highlighted the value of PERV inactivation to prevent cross-species viral transmission and demonstrated the successful production of PERV-inactivated animals to address the safety concern in clinical xenotransplantation. |
The genetically modified organs seemed to function for more than two days but some researchers are sceptical that the experiments had value.