Search PubMedSearch

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Prime editing”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Prime assembly with linear DNA donors enables large genomic insertions.

Targeted insertion of large DNA fragments has promising applications for genome engineering and gene therapy1,2. Twin prime-editing guide RNAs have enabled relatively large insertions, but the efficiency remains low for insertions greater than 400 base pairs3-6. Here we describe a prime assembly (PA) approach for the insertion of large DNA donor fragments, of which the ends are designed to overlap with the flaps generated by twin prime editing (twinPE). We used PA to insert one or multiple overlapping DNA fragments, with total insertion sizes ranging from 0.1 kb to 11 kb. An inhibitor of non-homologous end joining enhanced both the efficiency and precision of insertions. PA relies on DNA templates that are easily produced, does not require co-delivery of exogenous DNA-dependent DNA polymerases and proceeds in non-cycling cells, suggesting independence from canonical homology-directed repair pathways. Our study demonstrates that PA can initiate Gibson-like assembly in cells to generate gene insertions without double-stranded DNA breaks, recombinases or homology-directed repair.

Animals

Genome Editing in Solanaceae: Harnessing CRISPR-Cas Technology for Precision Crop Improvement.

Malnutrition and climate-induced stress remain major constraints to global food and nutritional security despite the yield gains of the Green Revolution. Solanaceae crops such as tomato, potato, brinjal, and pepper are key sources of vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds. Yet, their genetic improvement has been limited by narrow diversity and complex polygenic traits. The advent of CRISPR/Cas-mediated genome editing provides a transformative platform for precision crop improvement by enabling targeted modification of genes controlling stress tolerance, yield, and nutritional quality. In Solanaceae, CRISPR/Cas applications have successfully enhanced resistance against major pathogens (SlMlo1, SlPelo, SlDCL2), improved abiotic stress tolerance through editing of SlMAPK3, SlCBF1, and SlBZR1, and optimized fruit quality traits via modulation of Psy1, CrtR-b2, and fiAD2/3. Emerging innovations, such as base and prime editing, and RNP-mediated transgene-free delivery, are expanding the precision and scope of editing. However, challenges persist, including genotype-dependent transformation, low HDR efficiency, and incomplete understanding of off-target and epigenetic effects. Integrating CRISPR with omics-guided gene discovery, efficient transformation systems, and regulatory harmonization can accelerate the development of nutritionally enriched, stress-resilient, and sustainable Solanaceae varieties. This review synthesizes recent advances, identifies critical limitations, and outlines future opportunities for deploying CRISPR/Cas technology to achieve next-generation breeding and food system resilience.

CRISPR/Cas

RNA splicing and cardiovascular disease: a guide for cardiologists.

Alternative splicing (AS) is a fundamental RNA processing mechanism, which generates different RNA transcripts and consequently different protein isoforms from a single gene. This increases the diversity of proteins within an organism and can fine-tune biological processes. This review examines how cardiac-enriched RNA-binding proteins establish heart-specific splicing programs governing aspects of cardiac development, function, and disease. Developmentally, coordinated sarcomeric isoform switches underpin the foetal-to-adult transition and further isoform rewiring in ion channel and kinase genes determine electrophysiology and excitation-contraction coupling. AS contributes to the pathogenesis of several cardiomyopathies and emerging datasets suggest that pathological hypertrophy engages distinct splicing signatures compared with physiological hypertrophy. This review summarizes diagnostic and prognostic opportunities arising from bulk, long-read, and single-cell/nucleus transcriptomics, which resolve cell type-specific isoforms and disease-associated switches. Circulating RNA biomarkers (including splice ratios and circularRNAs) may signify myocardial remodelling and arrhythmic risk. Integrative approaches that link AS with proteomics and genomics improve variant interpretation, reveal previously unannotated protein isoforms, and enable tracking of disease progression and therapy response. Finally, an outline of therapeutic strategies to modulate AS in cardiovascular disease (CVD), including antisense oligonucleotides, small molecules, and genome-editing modalities (CRISPR, base, and prime editing), is provided. The major challenges that remain before splice-targeting therapeutics can be targeted to treat cardiovascular disease are highlighted. Lessons from neuromuscular indications establish clinical feasibility of splicing correction and motivate translation to cardiology. Together, mechanistic insight, biomarker development, and therapeutic innovation position RNA splicing as a tractable axis for precision cardiovascular medicine.

Humans

CRISPR for cystic fibrosis: Advances and insights from a systematic review.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a severe genetic disorder caused by loss-of-function mutations in the CFTR gene. Gene-editing approaches have the potential to correct such mutations. This systematic review outlines the mechanisms of the main CRISPR-based technologies, and, through cross-study comparisons, analyzes 27 research articles that applied them to target CF-causing variants. We report and discuss the strategy design, target cell selection, editing efficiency, prevalence of editing byproducts, and levels of CFTR functional restoration achieved in each work, with the aim of providing technical insights for further exploration of CRISPR-based gene-editing approaches. Our findings show that the F508del and W1282X mutations were the most extensively studied CF-causing variants, though over fifteen mutations were targeted overall. The majority of works under review explored the use of homology-directed repair or base editing, with a growing number of studies reporting efficient prime editing. Some studies tackled multiple individual mutations, compared different editors, or tested strategies across various models, while others focused on approaches that rescue CFTR function without directly correcting a mutation. Several works also proposed strategies that could address multiple variants with a single approach, while others highlighted technical difficulties in editing certain regions of the CFTR gene. This cross-study comparison also emphasizes the need for standardized reporting of editing efficiency and functional recovery, and stresses the importance of further single-cell RNA sequencing and in vivo studies to reach clinically relevant conclusions. As gene-editing techniques continue to evolve, and with over 60 ongoing CRISPR-based clinical trials, there is growing optimism for meaningful advancements in CF gene-editing therapeutics.

Cystic Fibrosis

Computational modeling of human genetic variants in mice.

Mouse models represent a powerful platform to study genes and variants associated with human diseases. While genome editing technologies have increased the rate and precision of model development, predicting and installing specific types of mutations in mice that mimic the native human genetic context is complicated. Computational tools can identify and align orthologous wild-type genetic sequences from different species; however, predictive modeling and engineering of equivalent mouse variants that mirror the nucleotide and/or polypeptide change effects of human variants remains challenging. Here, we present H2M (human-to-mouse), a computational pipeline to analyze human genetic variation data to systematically model and predict the functional consequences of equivalent mouse variants. We show that H2M can integrate mouse-to-human and paralog-to-paralog variant mapping analyses with precision genome editing pipelines to devise strategies tailored to model specific variants in mice. We leveraged these analyses to establish a database containing > 3 million human-mouse equivalent mutation pairs, as well as in silico-designed base and prime editing libraries to engineer 4,944 recurrent variant pairs. Using H2M, we also found that predicted pathogenicity and immunogenicity scores were highly correlated between human-mouse variant pairs, suggesting that variants with similar sequence change effects may also exhibit broad interspecies functional conservation. Overall, H2M fills a gap in the field by establishing a robust and versatile computational framework to identify and model homologous variants across species while providing key experimental resources to augment functional genetics and precision medicine applications. The H2M database (including software package and documentation) can be accessed at https://human2mouse.com.

Journal Article

Synonymous mutations in essential genes infrequently produce fitness effects in human cell lines.

The assumption that synonymous mutations are fitness-neutral is central to many foundational results in the fields of genetics, genomics, evolutionary biology, and medicine. However, recent results suggest synonymous mutations have pervasive and strong fitness effects. These vigorously debated studies in non-human model systems have even suggested that the proportion of synonymous mutations and their fitness effect sizes are similar to non-synonymous mutations. To probe the fitness effect of synonymous mutations, we utilized recent advances in base editing to test 8558 potential synonymous mutations in 128 highly essential genes in human cell lines. Importantly, our library design excluded splice-proximal sites, ensuring a direct test of codon-level synonymous effects independent of splicing disruption. We find that synonymous mutations rarely have fitness effects on growth, occurring around 37.9-fold (95% CI: 22.16-81.48-fold) less frequently than missense mutations. In this experimental context, these findings demonstrate that synonymous mutations impact cellular fitness far less frequently than missense mutations. These results deviate from earlier reports of widespread synonymous fitness effects in yeast, yet they align with recent prime editing data observed in other human cell lines.

Humans

CRISPR-Enabled functional genomics in hPSCs-derived neural models for autism spectrum disorder.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a genetically heterogeneous neurodevelopmental condition in which hundreds of individually rare risk variants converge on a small number of shared biological pathways, including synaptic scaffolding, chromatin remodeling, excitation-inhibition balance, and cellular energy metabolism. Translating this genetic heterogeneity into mechanistic insight requires experimental systems capable of interrogating individual gene functions in human-relevant neural contexts at scale. CRISPR-enabled functional genomics in human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived neural models, spanning neural progenitors, cortical and inhibitory neurons, astrocytes, microglia, and brain organoids, provides precisely this capability. By integrating pooled perturbation screens with multimodal readouts including single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, chromatin accessibility profiling, proximity labeling proteomics, multi-electrode array electrophysiology, and metabolic flux analysis, these platforms enable systematic, causal mapping of ASD gene function at system resolution. Early applications have already revealed convergent mechanisms: BAF complex disruption expands the ventral progenitor pool and biases its fate toward oligodendrocyte and interneuron lineages; ADNP loss impairs microglial synaptic pruning through altered endocytic trafficking; and mTOR pathway dysregulation in PTEN- and TSC2-perturbed models links genetic risk directly to metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunction. Computational frameworks including MIMOSCA and SCEPTRE enable causal network reconstruction and pseudotime inference from these datasets, moving the field from gene lists toward pathway-level models of ASD pathobiology. Translational applications leverage isogenic iPSC panels and variant-level base and prime editing to stratify ASD variants by functional impact, informing gene therapy design for haploinsufficient targets such as CHD8 and SCN2A via AAV or antisense oligonucleotide delivery. Remaining challenges, including model developmental immaturity, batch variability, and the difficulty of modeling polygenic risk, are addressed by a roadmap integrating spatial perturbomics, AI-driven causal inference, and population-scale standardized biobanks. This review synthesizes the current state of CRISPR-based functional genomics in human stem cell neural models as a coherent experimental framework for converting ASD genetic associations into mechanistic understanding and therapeutic opportunity.

Humans

Uncovering phenotypic expansion in AXIN2-related disorders through precision animal modeling.

PURPOSE: Heterozygous pathogenic variants in AXIN2 (HGNC: 904) cause oligodontia-colorectal cancer syndrome. We identified 5 individuals with de novo heterozygous variants [NM_004655.4:c.196G>A p.(Glu66Lys), c.197A>G p.(Glu66Gly), and c.199G>A p.(Gly67Arg)] in AXIN2. Common phenotypes among these individuals included ectodermal dysplasia, global developmental delay, microcephaly, and limb, ophthalmologic, and genitourinary abnormalities. METHODS: Structural modeling was performed to predict the impact of these variants on AXIN2. A prime editing N1 screen of mouse embryos was performed to test whether the p.Glu66Lys variant produces a phenotype. Drosophila models were used to test the effect of this variant on Wnt signaling. RESULTS: Structural modeling suggests that these variants disrupt AXIN2 binding to tankyrase, which regulates AXIN2 levels through poly-ADP-ribosylation. Heterozygous (p.Glu66Lys) mouse embryos were perinatally lethal with soft palate clefts and skeletal abnormalities. Modeling of the p.Glu66Lys variant in the Drosophila wing suggests gain-of-function or dominant-negative activity compared to reference AXIN2. CONCLUSION: Specific variants in the tankyrase-binding domain of AXIN2 are pathogenic, leading to phenotypic expansion with potential context-dependent effects on AXIN2 function and Wnt signaling. The N1 modeling strategy used to demonstrate variant pathogenicity may be beneficial for resolving other heterozygous variants associated with congenital anomalies.

AXIN2

KDM3B Regulates Postradiation Fibrotic Responses in Prostate Stroma via N6-methyladenosine Modification of LOX.

PURPOSE: Genome-wide association studies have uncovered single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) linked to radiation therapy (RT)-induced toxicities in patients with prostate cancer. SNP rs17599026, located in intron 21 of the KDM3B gene, has been associated with late-onset urinary toxicity, with an increased frequency of urination observed 2 years post-RT compared with pretreatment conditions. This study aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms driving this association. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-dead Cas9 prime editing system was used to mimic KDM3B genetic variants in prostate stromal cell lines. Murine models with wild-type and heterozygous Kdm3b genotypes were used to assess fibrosis following radiation. RNA immunoprecipitation, transcript stability assays, and protein analysis elucidated the role of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification in regulating lysyl oxidase (LOX) expression. α-ketoglutarate (α-KG) supplementation was tested for its effects on KDM3B protein stability, LOX expression, and fibrosis mitigation. RESULTS: The rs17599026 SNP reduced KDM3B protein expression via circular RNA and microRNA-mediated mechanisms, leading to decreased m6A modification and increased stability of LOX messenger RNA. Elevated LOX expression promoted collagen cross-linking and fibrosis in prostate stroma. α-KG supplementation restored KDM3B protein levels, reduced LOX expression, and mitigated fibrosis in vitro and in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: KDM3B genetic variations influence radiation-induced fibrosis through posttranscriptional regulation of LOX. Dietary α-KG supplementation may serve as a mechanism-based strategy to alleviate radiation toxicity in patients with prostate cancer, offering a potential therapeutic pathway to improve treatment outcomes.

Male

Generation of two homozygous iPSC lines carrying variants of uncertain significance in LMNA associated with cardiomyopathy.

Variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in the LMNA gene represent a major challenge in clinical genetics, as insufficient functional evidence limits their interpretation and clinical decision-making in laminopathies, including dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Here, we generated two isogenic induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines carrying homozygous LMNA variants, c.293A > G (p.Glu98Gly) and c.439G > A (p.Ala147Thr) by prime editing of a healthy donor iPSC line. Both variants are located within Coil 1B domain of lamin A. The edited iPSC lines retain normal morphology, pluripotency, genomic integrity, and trilineage differentiation capacity, providing a valuable platform for functional characterization and potential clinical reclassification of LMNA VUS.

Humans

Allelic variation in UVR8 modulates thermotolerance-yield tradeoffs in plants.

Industrial activities have driven stratospheric ozone depletion, increasing surface UV-B radiation while exacerbating global warming. These changes limit crop productivity, alter species distributions, and disrupt plant metabolic processes, but the mechanisms linking energy signaling to heat-stress responses remain unclear. Here, we identify the photoreceptor UV RESISTANCE LOCUS 8b (OsUVR8b) as a substrate of SNF1-related protein kinase 1 (SnRK1) in rice and reveal a natural variation at its SnRK1-mediated phosphorylation site (Ser177) that is correlated with adaptation to tropical climates. The thermotolerant OsUVR8bAla177 accessions show geographic enrichment in low-latitude regions with elevated temperatures. Functional validation through prime editing demonstrated that a Ser177-to-Ala177 substitution enhances heat tolerance, whereas the reverse edit compromises it. Mechanistically, OsUVR8bSer177 exhibits reduced stability and an impaired capacity for scavenging reactive oxygen species under heat stress. The regulatory function of the OsUVR8b Ser177 phosphorylation site, a molecular switch that governs UVR8 stability and thermotolerance, can be functionally re-established across rice, Arabidopsis, tobacco, and soybean, indicating its preservation during domestication. Notably, OsUVR8bSer177 maintains higher fertility and yield under non-stress conditions, indicating a tradeoff between heat adaptation and productivity. Our findings thus establish this switch as a key regulator of the yield-resilience balance and a promising target for breeding of climate-resilient crops.

Thermotolerance

U2AF1 mutations rescue deleterious exon skipping induced by KRAS mutations.

The mechanisms by which somatic mutations of splicing factors, such as U2AF1S34F in lung adenocarcinoma, contribute to cancer pathogenesis are not well understood. Here, we used prime editing to modify the endogenous U2AF1 gene in lung adenocarcinoma cells and assessed the resulting impact on alternative splicing. These analyses identified KRAS as a key target modulated by U2AF1S34F. One specific KRAS mutation, G12S, generates a cryptic U2AF1 binding site that leads to skipping of KRAS exon 2 and generation of a non-functional KRAS transcript. Expression of the U2AF1S34F mutant reverts this exon skipping and restores KRAS function. Analysis of cancer genomes reveals that U2AF1S34F mutations are enriched in KRASG12S-mutant lung adenocarcinomas. A comprehensive analysis of splicing factor/oncogene mutation co-occurrence in cancer genomes also revealed significant co-enrichment of KRASQ61R and U2AF1I24T mutations. Experimentally, KRASQ61R mutation leads to KRAS exon 3 skipping, which in turn can be rescued by the expression of U2AF1I24T. Our findings provide evidence that splicing factor mutations can rescue splicing defects caused by oncogenic mutations. More broadly, they demonstrate a dynamic process of cascading selection where mutational events are positively selected in cancer genomes as a consequence of earlier mutations.

Journal Article

Advances in Precision Editing Therapies for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency.

Genome and RNA editing modalities have revolutionized precision gene therapy, offering a safer alternative to traditional gene replacement approaches. Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) is a compelling model for precision medicine because the disease mechanism is well defined-mutations in a single gene are responsible for both liver and lung pathology. In this review, we summarize the current preclinical and clinical efforts for AATD, with an emphasis on genome and RNA editing strategies.

Humans

Multichannel genomic recording of biological information with ENGRAM.

Molecular recording is an emerging paradigm for measuring biology over time. Enhancer-mediated genomic recording of activity in multiplex (ENGRAM) is a recently described synthetic biology circuit architecture that converts the transient activity of cis-regulatory elements (CREs) into stable genomic records that can be retrospectively recovered via DNA sequencing. Here we provide a step-by-step protocol for conducting ENGRAM experiments and analyzing the resulting data. We also describe key design considerations for ENGRAM recorders, summarize the strengths and limitations of ENGRAM, and highlight applications, including multiplex signal recording and high-throughput CRE screening. In contrast to other systems for DNA-based recording in mammalian systems, ENGRAM relies on prime editing-mediated insertions to record the activity of a given CRE, such that it is inherently multiplexable-for example, four-base-pair insertions can represent the activities of up to 256 distinct CREs. A further contrast lies with ENGRAM's compatibility with DNA Typewriter, which facilitates the capture of signal order. For users with basic skills in molecular biology, mammalian cell culture and DNA sequencing analysis, ENGRAM experiments can typically be completed within 5-6 weeks.

Genomics

Targeted genomic integration and rearrangement using prime assembly.

Although therapeutic genome editing holds great potential to remedy diverse inherited and acquired disorders, targeted installation of medium-to-large genomic modifications in therapeutically relevant cells remains challenging1. Here we develop prime assembly, an approach that permits DNA sequence assembly and integration in human cells leveraging CRISPR-targeted dual flap synthesis. This method enables RNA-programmable site-specific integration of single or double-stranded DNA fragments. Unlike homology-directed repair, prime assembly is similarly active in dividing and non-dividing cells. We applied prime assembly to perform targeted exon recoding, transgene integration and megabase-scale rearrangements, including at therapeutically relevant loci in primary human cells. Prime assembly expands the capabilities of genome engineering by enabling the targeted integration of medium to large-sized DNA sequences without relying on double-stranded DNA donors, nuclease-driven double-strand breaks or cell cycle progression.

Journal Article

Bi-allelic ATG4D variants are associated with a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by speech and motor impairment.

Autophagy regulates the degradation of damaged organelles and protein aggregates, and is critical for neuronal development, homeostasis, and maintenance, yet few neurodevelopmental disorders have been associated with pathogenic variants in genes encoding autophagy-related proteins. We report three individuals from two unrelated families with a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by speech and motor impairment, and similar facial characteristics. Rare, conserved, bi-allelic variants were identified in ATG4D, encoding one of four ATG4 cysteine proteases important for autophagosome biogenesis, a hallmark of autophagy. Autophagosome biogenesis and induction of autophagy were intact in cells from affected individuals. However, studies evaluating the predominant substrate of ATG4D, GABARAPL1, demonstrated that three of the four ATG4D patient variants functionally impair ATG4D activity. GABARAPL1 is cleaved or "primed" by ATG4D and an in vitro GABARAPL1 priming assay revealed decreased priming activity for three of the four ATG4D variants. Furthermore, a rescue experiment performed in an ATG4 tetra knockout cell line, in which all four ATG4 isoforms were knocked out by gene editing, showed decreased GABARAPL1 priming activity for the two ATG4D missense variants located in the cysteine protease domain required for priming, suggesting that these variants impair the function of ATG4D. The clinical, bioinformatic, and functional data suggest that bi-allelic loss-of-function variants in ATG4D contribute to the pathogenesis of this syndromic neurodevelopmental disorder.

Journal Article

EndoV does not measurably affect TadA-dependent A-to-I RNA editing in Escherichia coli under exponential-growth conditions in rich medium.

Adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) mRNA editing changes the genetic information post-transcriptionally and was only recently reported to occur in bacteria. Here, we examined whether endonuclease V (EndoV; encoded by nfi) cleaves inosine-containing RNAs in vivo and thereby influences the abundance and fate of A-to-I-edited mRNAs in Escherichia coli. We generated an nfi loss-of-function mutant carrying a premature stop codon and performed RNA sequencing alongside the isogenic wild-type strain. We observed that global and site-specific editing occurrence or levels in both mRNAs and tRNAs were indistinguishable between strains. Moreover, overexpression of EndoV did not affect the number of edited sites, motif enrichment, or editing levels compared with a control strain overexpressing mCherry. Our findings suggest that, in contrast to human EndoV, bacterial EndoV does not regulate the steady-state pool of edited mRNAs in E. coli under nutrient-rich, exponential-growth conditions in vivo.IMPORTANCEAdenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) mRNA editing is an emerging regulatory layer in bacteria, but the factors that act on edited transcripts are largely unknown. Endonuclease V (EndoV) was a prime candidate because it cleaves inosine-containing nucleic acids and can act on inosine-containing RNA in vitro. By combining loss-of-function and overexpression of EndoV with genome-wide RNA editing measurements, we show that EndoV does not measurably influence TadA-dependent A-to-I mRNA editing in Escherichia coli under standard laboratory conditions. This negative result is important because it rules out a natural effector candidate and redirects attention to other bacterial pathways that may process edited RNAs. Our work, therefore, sharpens mechanistic models for bacterial RNA editing and helps focus future searches for its regulators and physiological roles.

Escherichia coli

The present and future of nonviral delivery-based genome editing for hereditary hearing loss.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review summarizes nonviral genome-editing delivery platforms for hereditary hearing loss, focusing on lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and engineered virus-like particles (eVLPs), and discusses their advantages over adeno-associated virus-based delivery, as well as the barriers to clinical translation. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent advances have established LNPs as a clinically advanced nonviral platform, although challenges related to inner ear biodistribution, cell type specificity, endosomal escape, and immunogenicity remain to be addressed. In parallel, eVLPs have undergone substantial technical evolution, progressing from early low efficiency systems to advanced base editor- and prime editor-eVLP architectures that enhance cargo loading and editing efficiency. Extracellular vesicle-based genome editing has also emerged as an additional platform, although issues related to reproducibility, loading efficiency, and scalability remain major hurdles. SUMMARY: Nonviral genome editing platforms expand the therapeutic toolkit for hereditary hearing loss by enabling transient delivery of genome editors with potential safety advantages. Future efforts should focus on characterizing biodistribution and immunogenicity, refining cell type-specific tropism, and establishing scalable manufacturing processes to enable successful clinical translation.

Humans