Talk of curing AIDS made front - page news last year, in part due to an astonishing new gene - editing technology: lab - engineered proteins
called zinc finger nucleases.
And in another advance, virologist Paula Cannon of the University of Southern California
used zinc finger nucleases to create human stem cells that lack CCR5.
Announced a worldwide collaboration with Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. (Sangamo) using Sangamo's
zinc finger nuclease technology platform for the development of next - generation ex vivo cell therapies in oncology.
Here we describe engineering a pair
of zinc finger nucleases that, when introduced into human T cells, efficiently disrupt cxcr4 by cleavage and error - prone non-homologous DNA end - joining.
In that case, six patients suspended antiretroviral therapy for 12 weeks after infusion
with zinc finger nuclease — altered CD4 cells.
Ultimately, this week's discourse will lead to a consensus statement providing some guidance on how to approach using this and older gene editing technologies such
as zinc finger nucleases and enzymes called transcription activator - like effector nucleases, or TALENs.
These approaches, which include exotic sounding tools
like zinc finger nucleases and CRISPR / Cas9, differ from more traditional ways reducing the impact of the HD mutation on cells.
Zinc finger nuclease mediated knockout of ADP - dependent glucokinase in cancer cell lines: effects on cell survival and mitochondrial oxidative metabolism.
Zinc finger nucleases [1], [2], transcription activator - like effector nucleases [3], [4] and homing meganucleases [5] have provided powerful tools to induce targeted mutations in the form of small insertions or deletions derived from DNA break repair of nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) or homologous recombination.
In a 2005 Nature paper, the Sangamo team, led by Holmes and Urnov, described how
special zinc finger nucleases engineered to recognize a specific position could correct mutated genes in human cells.
Its competitors — designer proteins
called zinc finger nucleases and TALENs — also precisely alter chosen DNA sequences, and several companies are already exploiting them for therapeutic purposes in clinical trials.
«CRISPR has proven so easy and inexpensive that Dana Carroll of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, who spearheaded the development
of zinc finger nucleases, [one of its competitors,] says it has brought about the «democratization of gene targeting.
In the past, researchers have attempted to do this with gene editing tools
like zinc fingers nucleases, but the process was too labor - intensive to be used on a large scale.
Correction of dystrophin expression in cells from Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients through genomic excision of exon 51
by zinc finger nucleases.
In 2009, for example, Sangamo Therapeutics in Richmond, California, began
using zinc finger nucleases to modify genes in immune cells from HIV - infected people, hoping to make the cells resistant to the virus.
In recent years several techniques, such as CRISPR / Cas9 or
zinc finger nucleases have been experimented to directly modify the DNA of plants and animals.
Those tools, called
zinc finger nucleases and TALENs (short for transcription activator - like effector nucleases), link a cutting enzyme to a protein that binds DNA in specific spots.
«Before CRISPR, there was TALENS [transcription activator - like effector nucleases] and
zinc finger nucleases — older technologies that were not as precise or reliable,» explains Sosa.
But CRISPR has proven so easy and inexpensive that Dana Carroll of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, who spearheaded the development of
zinc finger nucleases, says it has brought about the «democratization of gene targeting.»
They have used a different technique, called
zinc finger nucleases, to disrupt a gene on T cells that HIV uses to enter the cells.
In clinical trials already underway, for example, researchers have used an older gene - editing technique, enzymes call
zinc finger nucleases, in immune cells to deactivate the gene for CCR5, a surface protein that HIV latches onto in order to infect cells.
More recently, researchers have successfully used enzymes called
zinc finger nucleases to cut out specific genes, but this approach is costly because it requires a new nuclease to be designed for each gene target.
Last year, researchers targeted and destroyed this gene in the T - cells of 12 people with HIV using custom - made proteins called
zinc finger nucleases.
The enzyme, called
a zinc finger nuclease, clips the gene for the CCR5 receptor and disables it.
To these iPS cells they added DNA for proteins called
zinc finger nucleases that snipped the cell's DNA at the defect in the A1At gene.
The trial is using a form of DNA scissors called
zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs).
A similar approach, but using a different technology (
zinc finger nucleases), was reported for Huntington's disease in 2012.
Sangamo is using an older gene - editing tool called
zinc finger nucleases, a complex protein structure designed to bind and cleave a specific region of DNA.
The variety of new tools available for genetic manipulation now include lentiviral - based gene delivery, and gene editing using CRISPR / Cas9,
zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) or transcription activator - like effector nucleases (TALENs).
Working with proteins called
zinc finger nucleases and TALENs, Zhang attempted to edit the genomes of mammalian cells with a view to engineering them.
With the genome engineering revolution came epigenome - engineering tools -
zinc finger nucleases and TALENs fused to epigenetic modifiers enabled epigenetic modifications at a user - specified locus.
Research Interests: Atherosclerosis; HDL metabolism; Atrial fibrillation; Genetics; Genomics; eQTL; Gene expression; Reverse cholesterol transport; Dysfunctional HDL; RNAseq; Allelic expression imbalance; ABCA1; Mouse models; Zinc finger nuclease
In the early 2000s, scientists figured out how to use enzymes, called
zinc finger nucleases, to delete and replace specific undesired genes in a variety of organisms.
Intellia Therapeutics and Novartis recently announced a partnership to work on a similar approach, while Sangamo Therapeutics is looking to expand
their Zinc Finger Nuclease treatment trials to β - Thalassaemia in collaboration with Bioverativ.
Two newer gene - editing methods —
zinc finger nucleases, used since the late 1990s, and TALENs, first described in 2011 — allowed more precise modifications, he says, «but there was a real art and skill required, and only a handful of labs could do those.»