Research progress of high precision single base editing technology with a focus on prime editing

Abstract

Gene editing is a technique in genetic engineering that aims to change specific genes in the genome of a certain organism mainly by modifying specific genes, such as by adding or deleting them. It has a profound meaning in the treatment of human genetic ailments and in the modification of diseased genes in plants and animals, and is also one of the hottest research areas in the life sciences in recent years. This paper focuses on the development of CRISPR/Cas9-based single-base editing technologies after 2019, especially after the advent of lead editing. Researchers in various countries have applied it to rice and mice for experiments to ameliorate the accuracy of single-base editing and decrease off-target effects, and have tested the accuracy and conversion rate of prime editing (PE) by whole-genome sequencing and other methods, and have continued to innovate on this basis to pursue more efficient editing results. This paper summarizes the problems that still need to be solved for PE, so that it can serve as a reference in the future research process and better develop prime editor and gene editing.