CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-10-01Epub Date: 2024-10-10DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.0042
Jon Rueda, Íñigo de Miguel Beriain, Lluis Montoliu
{"title":"Affordable Pricing of CRISPR Treatments is a Pressing Ethical Imperative.","authors":"Jon Rueda, Íñigo de Miguel Beriain, Lluis Montoliu","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0042","DOIUrl":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0042","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Casgevy, the world's first approved CRISPR-based cell therapy, has been priced at $2.2 million per patient. Although this hefty price tag was widely anticipated, the extremely high cost of this and other cell and gene therapies poses a major ethical issue in terms of equitable access and global health. In this Perspective, we argue that lowering the prices of future CRISPR therapies is an urgent ethical imperative. Although we focus on Casgevy as a case study, much of our analysis can be extrapolated to the controversies over affordable access to other gene and cell therapies. First, we explain why this first-of-its-kind CRISPR therapy might be so expensive. We then analyze the ethical issues of equity and global health of early CRISPR treatments. Next, we discuss potential solutions to lower the prices of CRISPR gene therapies. We conclude that the approval of CRISPR transforms our obligations of justice and compels us to bring future gene therapies to the maximum possible number of patients with serious genetic diseases at affordable prices.</p>","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142401956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-10-01DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.55675.rfs2023
Suchita Nety
{"title":"Rosalind Franklin Society Proudly Announces the 2023 Award Recipient for <i>The CRISPR Journal</i>.","authors":"Suchita Nety","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.55675.rfs2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2024.55675.rfs2023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142480630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-10-01DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.0028
Ryo Niwa, Tomoko Matsumoto, Alexander Y Liu, Maki Kawato, Takayuki Kondo, Kayoko Tsukita, Peter Gee, Haruhisa Inoue, Thomas L Maurissen, Knut Woltjen
{"title":"Enrichment of Allelic Editing Outcomes by Prime Editing in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.","authors":"Ryo Niwa, Tomoko Matsumoto, Alexander Y Liu, Maki Kawato, Takayuki Kondo, Kayoko Tsukita, Peter Gee, Haruhisa Inoue, Thomas L Maurissen, Knut Woltjen","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0028","DOIUrl":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Gene editing in human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells with programmable nucleases facilitates reliable disease models, but methods using double-strand break repair often produce random on-target by-products. Prime editing (PE) combines Cas9 nickase with reverse transcriptase and PE guide RNA (pegRNA) encoding a repair template to reduce by-products. We implemented a GMP-compatible protocol for transfecting Cas9- or PE-2A-mCherry plasmids to track and fractionate human iPS cells based on PE expression level. We compared the editing outcomes of Cas9- and PE-based methods in a GFP-to-BFP conversion assay at the <i>HEK3</i> benchmark locus and at the <i>APOE</i> Alzheimer's risk locus, revealing superior precision of PE at high expression levels. Moreover, sorting cells for PE expression level influenced allelic editing outcomes at the target loci. We expect that our findings will aid in the creation of gene-edited human iPS cells with intentional heterozygous and homozygous genotypes.</p>","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142480627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-10-01DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.0020
Victoria R Li, Tinghui Wu, Alicja Tadych, Aaron Wong, Zijun Zhang
{"title":"Widespread Impact of Natural Genetic Variations in CRISPR-Cas9 Outcomes.","authors":"Victoria R Li, Tinghui Wu, Alicja Tadych, Aaron Wong, Zijun Zhang","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0020","DOIUrl":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0020","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) is a genome editing tool widely used in biological research and clinical therapeutics. Natural human genetic variations, through altering the sequence context of CRISPR-Cas9 target regions, can significantly affect its DNA repair outcomes and ultimately lead to different editing efficiencies. However, these effects have not been systematically studied, even as CRISPR-Cas9 is broadly applied to primary cells and patient samples that harbor such genetic diversity. Here, we present comprehensive investigations of natural genetic variations on CRISPR-Cas9 outcomes across the human genome. The utility of our analysis is illustrated in two case studies, on both preclinical discoveries of CD33 knockout in chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy and clinical applications of transthyretin (TTR) inactivation for treating TTR amyloidosis. We further expand our analysis to genome-scale, population-stratified common variants that may lead to gene editing disparity. Our analyses demonstrate pitfalls of failing to account for the widespread genetic variations in Cas9 target selection and how they can be effectively examined and avoided using our method. To facilitate broad access to our analysis, a web platform CROTONdb is developed, which provides predictions for all possible CRISPR-Cas9 target sites in the coding and noncoding regulatory regions, spanning over 5.38 million guide RNA targets and 90.82 million estimated variant effects. We anticipate CROTONdb having broad clinical utilities in gene and cellular therapies.</p>","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142480631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-09-30DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.0047
Kotaro Kamata, Nils Birkholz, Marijn Ceelen, Robert D Fagerlund, Simon A Jackson, Peter C Fineran
{"title":"Repurposing an Endogenous CRISPR-Cas System to Generate and Study Subtle Mutations in Bacteriophages.","authors":"Kotaro Kamata, Nils Birkholz, Marijn Ceelen, Robert D Fagerlund, Simon A Jackson, Peter C Fineran","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2024.0047","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While bacteriophage applications benefit from effective phage engineering, selecting the desired genotype after subtle modifications remains challenging. Here, we describe a two-phase endogenous CRISPR-Cas-based phage engineering approach that enables selection of small defined edits in <i>Pectobacterium carotovorum</i> phage ZF40. We designed plasmids containing sequences homologous to ZF40 and a mini-CRISPR array. The plasmids allowed genome editing through homologous recombination and counter-selection against non-recombinant phage genomes using an endogenous type I-E CRISPR-Cas system. With this technique, we first deleted target genes and subsequently restored loci with modifications. This two-phase approach circumvented major challenges in subtle phage modifications, including inadequate sequence distinction for CRISPR-Cas counter-selection and the requirement of a protospacer-adjacent motif, limiting sequences that can be modified. Distinct 20-bp barcodes were incorporated through engineering as differential target sites for programmed CRISPR-Cas activity, which allowed quantification of phage variants in mixed populations. This method aids studies and applications that require mixtures of similar phages.</p>","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142332259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-09-23DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.0053
Benjamin G Gowen, Prachi Khekare, Shannon R McCawley, Kory Melton, Craig Soares, Jean Chan, Vihasi Jani, Pierre Boivin, Ashil Bans, Weng-In Leong, Aaron J Cantor, Jack Walleshauser, Peter B Otoupal, Rina J Mepani, Adam P Silverman, Mary Haak-Frendscho, Spencer C Wei
{"title":"Identification of a Guide RNA Targeting an Ultraconserved Element for Evaluation of Cas9 Genome Editors Across Mammalian Species.","authors":"Benjamin G Gowen, Prachi Khekare, Shannon R McCawley, Kory Melton, Craig Soares, Jean Chan, Vihasi Jani, Pierre Boivin, Ashil Bans, Weng-In Leong, Aaron J Cantor, Jack Walleshauser, Peter B Otoupal, Rina J Mepani, Adam P Silverman, Mary Haak-Frendscho, Spencer C Wei","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2024.0053","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142300796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-08-01Epub Date: 2024-07-08DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.0021
Margaret Waltz, Rebecca L Walker, Michael A Flatt, Douglas MacKay, John M Conley, Eric T Juengst, R Jean Cadigan
{"title":"Challenging the Boundaries Between Treatment, Prevention, and Enhancement in Human Genome Editing.","authors":"Margaret Waltz, Rebecca L Walker, Michael A Flatt, Douglas MacKay, John M Conley, Eric T Juengst, R Jean Cadigan","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0021","DOIUrl":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0021","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Traditional distinctions between treatment and enhancement goals for human genome editing (HGE) have animated oversight considerations, yet these categories have been complicated by the addition of prevention as a possible target for HGE applications. To assess the role these three categories might play in continued HGE governance efforts, we report on interviews with genome editing scientists and governance group members. While some accepted traditional distinctions between treatment and enhancement and rejected the latter as unacceptable, others argued that the concept of enhancement is largely irrelevant or not as morally problematic as suggested. Others described how preventive goals for HGE create gray zones where prevention and enhancement may be difficult to distinguish, which may stymie uses of HGE. We conclude by discussing the governance implications of these various understandings of treatment, prevention, and enhancement as HGE research moves beyond the treatment of serious disease to embrace longer range preventive goals.</p>","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11386990/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141560350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CRISPR JournalPub Date : 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2024.0063
Rodolphe Barrangou
{"title":"AI and SynBio Meet CRISPR Heralding a New Genome Editing Era.","authors":"Rodolphe Barrangou","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2024.0063","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141992499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Prime Editing of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor 2 Attenuates Angiogenesis <i>In Vitro</i>.","authors":"Gaoen Ma, Hui Qi, Hongwei Deng, Lijun Dong, Qing Zhang, Junkai Ma, Yanhui Yang, Xiaohe Yan, Yajian Duan, Hetian Lei","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0019","DOIUrl":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0019","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR)-2 is a key switch for angiogenesis, which is observed in various human diseases. In this study, a novel system for advanced prime editing (PE), termed PE6h, is developed, consisting of dual lentiviral vectors: (1) a clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeat-associated protein 9 (H840A) nickase fused with reverse transcriptase and an enhanced PE guide RNA and (2) a dominant negative (DN) <i>MutL</i> homolog 1 gene with nicking guide RNA. PE6h was used to edit <i>VEGFR2</i> (c.18315T>A, 50.8%) to generate a premature stop codon (TAG from AAG), resulting in the production of DN-VEGFR2 (787 aa) in human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (HRECs). DN-VEGFR2 impeded VEGF-induced phosphorylation of VEGFR2, Akt, and extracellular signal-regulated kinase-1/2 and tube formation in PE6h-edited HRECs <i>in vitro</i>. Overall, our results highlight the potential of PE6h to inhibit angiogenesis <i>in vivo</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141903603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Expanding the Genome-Editing Toolbox with <i>Abyssicoccus albus</i> Cas9 Using a Unique Protospacer Adjacent Motif Sequence.","authors":"Akiyoshi Nakamura, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Tsubasa Yano, Reika Hasegawa, Yoichi Makino, Nobutaka Mitsuda, Teruhiko Terakawa, Seiichiro Ito, Shigeo S Sugano","doi":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0013","DOIUrl":"10.1089/crispr.2024.0013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The genome-editing efficiency of the CRISPR-Cas9 system hinges on the recognition of the protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) sequence, which is essential for Cas9 binding to DNA. The commonly used <i>Streptococcus pyogenes</i> (SpyCas9) targets the 5'-NGG-3' PAM sequence, which does not cover all the potential genomic-editing sites. To expand the toolbox for genome editing, SpyCas9 has been engineered to recognize flexible PAM sequences and Cas9 orthologs have been used to recognize novel PAM sequences. In this study, <i>Abyssicoccus albus</i> Cas9 (AalCas9, 1059 aa), which is smaller than SpyCas9, was found to recognize a unique 5'-NNACR-3' PAM sequence. Modification of the guide RNA sequence improved the efficiency of AalCas9-mediated genome editing in both plant and human cells. Predicted structure-assisted introduction of a point mutation in the putative PAM recognition site shifted the sequence preference of AalCas9. These results provide insights into Cas9 diversity and novel tools for genome editing.</p>","PeriodicalId":54232,"journal":{"name":"CRISPR Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141903602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}