The CRISPR-Cas9 System: A New Dawn in Gene Editing

Nurul Husna Mohamed Saleem

doi:10.4172/1948-593x.1000109

Abstract

The CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats with CRISPR-associated protein 9) system is a genome editing system that is easy to design, highly specific, efficient, robust, and well suited for highthroughput and multiplexed gene editing for a variety of cell types and organisms. In this review we describe current applications of this new system, which is growing in popularity and is increasingly being employed to selectively control gene expression on a genome-wide scale.

Highlights

The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPRs)-Cas9 system is a genome editing system that is easy to design, highly specific, efficient, robust, and well suited for highthroughput and multiplexed gene editing for a variety of cell types and organisms
The sitespecific DNA binding domains of the Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFN) and Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs) systems are based on chimeric protein, whereas the CRISPR- Cas system utilizes an RNA molecule
ZFNs consist of an engineered Zinc Finger Peptide (ZFP) fused to the cleavage domain of the FokI restriction enzyme

Summary

History of Gene Editing

Gene editing technology is a new tool that can be used to introduce targeted modifications into the genome. There are three well-defined technologies for gene editing: Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFNs), Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs), and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPRs) with CRISPR-associated (Cas) nucleases Each of these systems is characterized by an adaptable sequence-specific DNA binding domain and a nuclease domain that creates a double-strand cleavage. Cas is an RNA-guided DNA nuclease enzyme that provides an effective means of introducing targeted loss-of-function mutations at specific sites in the genome [12,14] by generating DNA Double Stranded Breaks (DSBs) at specific genomic loci This system is easy to design, highly specific, efficient, and well-suited for high- throughput and multiplexed gene editing for a variety of cell types and organisms [15]. This simplicity makes it a cutting edge genome editing tool

Processes in Genome Editing

Target gene knock out

CRISPR Advanced Gene Therapy

Findings

Concluding Remarks and Future Directions