Project description:Undesired on- and off-target effects of CRISPR-Cas nucleases remain a challenge in therapeutic genome editing. While the use of Cas9 nickases has been shown to minimize off-target mutagenesis, their use in therapeutic genome editing has been hampered by a lack of efficacy. To overcome this limitation, we and others have developed double nickase-based strategies to generate staggered DNA double breaks to mediate gene disruption or gene correction with high efficiency. However, the impact of paired single-strand nicks on genome integrity has remained largely unexplored. Here, we developed a novel CAST-Seq pipeline, D-CAST, to characterize chromosomal rearrangements induced by paired CRISPR-Cas9 nickases at three different loci in primary keratinocytes derived from epidermolysis bullosa patients. While targeting COL7A1, COL17A1, or LAMA3 with Cas9 nucleases caused previously undescribed chromosomal rearrangements, no chromosomal translocations were detected following single or paired Cas9-based nickase editing. Conversely, whereas single nickase applications did not result in gross genomic aberrations, the double nicking strategy induced large deletions/inversions within a 10 kb region surrounding the target sites at all three loci, similar to the nucleases. Taken together, our data indicate that double-nickase approaches combine efficient editing with greatly reduced off-target effects, but still leave substantial chromosomal rearrangements at on-target sites.
Project description:Undesired on- and off-target effects of CRISPR-Cas nucleases remain a challenge in therapeutic genome editing. While the use of Cas9 nickases has been shown to minimize off-target mutagenesis, their use in therapeutic genome editing has been hampered by a lack of efficacy. To overcome this limitation, we and others have developed double nickase-based strategies to generate staggered DNA double breaks to mediate gene disruption or gene correction with high efficiency. However, the impact of paired single-strand nicks on genome integrity has remained largely unexplored. Here, we developed a novel CAST-Seq pipeline, D-CAST, to characterize chromosomal rearrangements induced by paired CRISPR-Cas9 nickases at three different loci in primary keratinocytes derived from epidermolysis bullosa patients. While targeting COL7A1, COL17A1, or LAMA3 with Cas9 nucleases caused previously undescribed chromosomal rearrangements, no chromosomal translocations were detected following single or paired Cas9-based nickase editing. Conversely, whereas single nickase applications did not result in gross genomic aberrations, the double nicking strategy induced large deletions/inversions within a 10 kb region surrounding the target sites at all three loci, similar to the nucleases. Taken together, our data indicate that double-nickase approaches combine efficient editing with greatly reduced off-target effects, but still leave substantial chromosomal rearrangements at on-target sites.
Project description:Undesired on- and off-target effects of CRISPR-Cas nucleases remain a challenge in therapeutic genome editing. While the use of Cas9 nickases has been shown to minimize off-target mutagenesis, their use in therapeutic genome editing has been hampered by a lack of efficacy. To overcome this limitation, we and others have developed double nickase-based strategies to generate staggered DNA double breaks to mediate gene disruption or gene correction with high efficiency. However, the impact of paired single-strand nicks on genome integrity has remained largely unexplored. Here, we developed a novel CAST-Seq pipeline, D-CAST, to characterize chromosomal rearrangements induced by paired CRISPR-Cas9 nickases at three different loci in primary keratinocytes derived from epidermolysis bullosa patients. While targeting COL7A1, COL17A1, or LAMA3 with Cas9 nucleases caused previously undescribed chromosomal rearrangements, no chromosomal translocations were detected following single or paired Cas9-based nickase editing. Conversely, whereas single nickase applications did not result in gross genomic aberrations, the double nicking strategy induced large deletions/inversions within a 10 kb region surrounding the target sites at all three loci, similar to the nucleases. Taken together, our data indicate that double-nickase approaches combine efficient editing with greatly reduced off-target effects, but still leave substantial chromosomal rearrangements at on-target sites.
Project description:Undesired on- and off-target effects of CRISPR-Cas nucleases remain a challenge in therapeutic genome editing. While the use of Cas9 nickases has been shown to minimize off-target mutagenesis, their use in therapeutic genome editing has been hampered by a lack of efficacy. To overcome this limitation, we and others have developed double nickase-based strategies to generate staggered DNA double breaks to mediate gene disruption or gene correction with high efficiency. However, the impact of paired single-strand nicks on genome integrity has remained largely unexplored. Here, we developed a novel CAST-Seq pipeline, D-CAST, to characterize chromosomal rearrangements induced by paired CRISPR-Cas9 nickases at three different loci in primary keratinocytes derived from epidermolysis bullosa patients. While targeting COL7A1, COL17A1, or LAMA3 with Cas9 nucleases caused previously undescribed chromosomal rearrangements, no chromosomal translocations were detected following single or paired Cas9-based nickase editing. Conversely, whereas single nickase applications did not result in gross genomic aberrations, the double nicking strategy induced large deletions/inversions within a 10 kb region surrounding the target sites at all three loci, similar to the nucleases. Taken together, our data indicate that double-nickase approaches combine efficient editing with greatly reduced off-target effects, but still leave substantial chromosomal rearrangements at on-target sites.
2024-03-15 | GSE254922 | GEO
Project description:A versatile reporter system for CRISPR-mediated chromosomal rearrangements
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.
Project description:Ensuring genome safety during gene editing is crucial for clinical translation of the high-efficient CRISPR-Cas9 toolbox. Therefore, the undesired events including chromosomal translocations, vector integrations, and large deletions arising during therapeutic gene editing remain to be adequately addressed or tackled in vivo. Here, we apply CRISPR-Cas9TX in comparison to CRISPR-Cas9 to target Vegfa for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) disease in a mouse model. AAV delivery of both CRISPR-Cas9 and CRISPR-Cas9TX can efficiently inhibit laser-induced neovascularization. Importantly, Cas9TX almost eliminates chromosomal translocations that occur at a frequency of approximately 1% in Cas9-edited mouse retinal cells. Strikingly, the widely observed AAV integration at the target Vegfa site is also greatly dropped from nearly 50% of edited events to the background level during Cas9TX editing. Our findings reveal that chromosomal structural variations routinely occur during in vivo genome editing and highlight Cas9TX as a superior form of Cas9 for in vivo gene disruption.
Project description:We collected whole genome testis expression data from hybrid zone mice. We integrated GWAS mapping of testis expression traits and low testis weight to gain insight into the genetic basis of hybrid male sterility.