Journal
MOLECULAR THERAPY-METHODS & CLINICAL DEVELOPMENT
Volume 24, Issue -, Pages 30-39Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.omtm.2021.11.010
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [U19 HL129902, U19 HL156247]
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [UM1 AI126623, U19 AI149676, U19 AI149680, R01 AI135953, R01 HL136135]
- NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs [U42 OD011123, P51 OD010425]
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In the past decade, several gene editing platforms, such as ZFNs and CRISPR/Cas9, have been developed. Although CRISPR/Cas9 has gained popularity, the therapeutic advantages and disadvantages of each approach are still being explored. Researchers have established a nonhuman primate (NHP) model to predict the success of gene therapy and editing in humans. They found that CRISPR/Cas9 editing is more stable and efficient than ZFN editing, and suggested delivering RNase inhibitors along with the editing proteins to enhance their expression.
Over the past decade, numerous gene-editing platforms which alter host DNA in a highly specific and targeted fashion have been described. Two notable examples are zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), the first gene-editing platform to be tested in clinical trials, and more recently, CRISPR/Cas9. Although CRISPR/Cas9 approaches have become arguably the most popular platform in the field, the therapeutic advantages and disadvantages of each strategy are only beginning to emerge. We have established a nonhuman primate (NHP) model that serves as a strong predictor of successful gene therapy and gene-editing approaches in humans; our recent work shows that ZFN-edited hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) engraft at lower levels than CRISPR/Cas9-edited cells. Here, we investigate the mechanisms underlying this difference. We show that optimized culture conditions, including defined serum-free media, augment engraftment of gene-edited NHP HSPCs in a mouse xenograft model. Furthermore, we identify intracellular RNases as major barriers for mRNA-encoded nucleases relative to preformed enzymatically active CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes. We conclude that CRISPR/Cas9 RNP gene editing is more stable and efficient than ZFN mRNA-based delivery and identify co-delivered RNase inhibitors as a strategy to enhance the expression of gene-editing proteins from mRNA intermediates.
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