CRISPR Based Gene Editing Technologies in Cancer Research and Detection via miRNA

Abstract

The CRISPR system of genetic editing has been a breakthrough in all fields of science and medicine, including that of cancer research, therapy, and diagnosis. In the last two years, research has narrowed down on CRISPRs ability to serve as a tool to detect oncogenes in patients to diagnose cancer in a quick and efficient manner. CRISPR and the three key enzymes (cas9, cas12, and cas13) are a revolutionary tool for medicine and cancer trials. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short noncoding RNA which regulate gene expression and gene functions, both crucial to cell functions. However, aberrant miRNA is expressed in all tumor proliferation diseases, including cancer. Studies have shown CRISPRs ability to detect cancerous levels of oncogenic MicroRNAs in human samples through a variety of methods such as CRISPR-Cas9/RNAi, CRISPR/Cas12 and RCA coupling, CRISPR/Cas13 exosome coupling, and Cas13a-Cas12a amplification. All of these methods provide extremely quick high sensitivity and high specificity detection of oncogenic miRNA in samples with concentrations below 1 fM. This paper is a synthesis of the current research on the methods mentioned above to aid in the further research of CRISPR/Cas systems in cancer diagnosis and cancer therapeutics.