The State-of-the-Art of Gene Editing and its Application to Viral Infections and Diseases Including COVID-19

Recent progress and applications of single-cell sequencing technology in breast cancer

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology enables the precise analysis of individual cell transcripts with high sensitivity and throughput. When integrated with multiomics technologies, scRNA-seq significantly enhances the understanding of cellular diversity, particularly within the tumor microenvironment. Similarly, single-cell DNA sequencing has emerged as a powerful tool in cancer research, offering unparalleled insights into the genetic heterogeneity and evolution of tumors. In the context of breast cancer, this technology holds substantial promise for decoding the intricate genomic landscape that drives disease progression, treatment resistance, and metastasis. By unraveling the complexities of tumor biology at a granular level, single-cell DNA sequencing provides a pathway to advancing our comprehension of breast cancer and improving patient outcomes through personalized therapeutic interventions. As single-cell sequencing technology continues to evolve and integrate into clinical practice, its application is poised to revolutionize the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment strategies for breast cancer. This review explores the potential of single-cell sequencing technology to deepen our understanding of breast cancer, highlighting key approaches, recent advancements, and the role of the tumor microenvironment in disease plasticity. Additionally, the review discusses the impact of single-cell sequencing in paving the way for the development of personalized therapies.

Genome editing and its role in vaccine, diagnosis, and therapeutic advancement

Genome editing involves precise modification of specific nucleotides in the genome using nucleases like CRISPR/Cas, ZFN, or TALEN, leading to increased efficiency of homologous recombination (HR) for gene editing, and it can result in gene disruption events via non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) or homology-driven repair (HDR). Genome editing, particularly CRISPR-Cas9, revolutionizes vaccine development by enabling precise modifications of pathogen genomes, leading to enhanced vaccine efficacy and safety. It allows for tailored antigen optimization, improved vector design, and deeper insights into host genes' impact on vaccine responses, ultimately enhancing vaccine development and manufacturing processes. This review highlights different types of genome editing methods, their associated risks, approaches to overcome the shortcomings, and the diverse roles of genome editing.

A Current Landscape on Alport Syndrome Cases: Characterization, Therapy and Management Perspectives

Alport syndrome (AS) is a rare genetic disorder categorized by the progressive loss of kidney function, sensorineural hearing loss and eye abnormalities. It occurs due to mutations in three genes that encode for the alpha chains of type IV collagen. Globally, the disease is classified based on the pattern of inheritance into X-linked AS (XLAS), which is caused by pathogenic variants in COL4A5, representing 80% of AS. Autosomal recessive AS (ARAS), caused by mutations in either COL4A3 or COL4A4, represents 15% of AS. Autosomal dominant AS (ADAS) is rare and has been recorded in 5% of all cases due to mutations in COL4A3 or COL4A4. This review provides updated knowledge about AS including its clinical and genetic characteristics in addition to available therapies that only slow the progression of the disease. It also focuses on reported cases in Saudi Arabia and their prevalence. Moreover, we shed light on advances in genetic technologies like gene editing using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, the need for an early diagnosis of AS and managing the progression of the disease. Eventually, we provide a few recommendations for disease management, particularly in regions like Saudi Arabia where consanguineous marriages increase the risk.

CKM and TERT dual promoters drive CRISPR-dCas9 to specifically inhibit the malignant behavior of osteosarcoma cells

Improvements in treatment and chemotherapy have increased the survival rate of osteosarcoma, but overall efficacy remains low, highlighting the need for new gene therapy methods. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-deactivated Cas9 (CRISPR-dCas9) technology offers a promising strategy, but targeting osteosarcoma cells precisely is a challenge. We designed a system to achieve specific expression of CRISPR-dCas9-KRAB in osteosarcoma cells by using the creatine kinase muscle (CKM) promoter to drive dCas9-KRAB and the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter to drive single guide (sg)RNA expression. We inhibited the MDM2 proto-oncogene using this system in vitro, which efficiently inhibited the malignant behavior of osteosarcoma cells and induced apoptosis without affecting normal cells. In vivo experiments demonstrated that this system effectively inhibited the growth of subcutaneously transplanted tumors in nude mice. These findings provide a new method for precise identification and intervention of osteosarcoma with significant implications for the development of gene therapy methods for other cancers. Future research should focus on optimizing this system for clinical translation.

Multi-faceted CRISPR/Cas technological innovation aspects in the framework of 3P medicine

Since 2009, the European Association for Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine (EPMA, Brussels) promotes the paradigm change from reactive approach to predictive, preventive, and personalized medicine (PPPM/3PM) to protect individuals in sub-optimal health conditions from the health-to-disease transition, to increase life-quality of the affected patient cohorts improving, therefore, ethical standards and cost-efficacy of healthcare to great benefits of the society at large. The gene-editing technology utilizing CRISPR/Cas gene-editing approach has demonstrated its enormous value as a powerful tool in a broad spectrum of bio/medical research areas. Further, CRISPR/Cas gene-editing system is considered applicable to primary and secondary healthcare, in order to prevent disease spread and to treat clinically manifested disorders, involving diagnostics of SARS-Cov-2 infection and experimental treatment of COVID-19. Although the principle of the proposed gene editing is simple and elegant, there are a lot of technological challenges and ethical considerations to be solved prior to its broadly scaled clinical implementation. This article highlights technological innovation beyond the state of the art, exemplifies current achievements, discusses unsolved technological and ethical problems, and provides clinically relevant outlook in the framework of 3PM.

Emergence of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated bioimaging: A new dawn of in-situ detection

In-situ detection provides deep insights into the function of genes and their relationship with diseases by directly visualizing their spatiotemporal behavior. As an emerging in-situ imaging tool, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-mediated bioimaging can localize targets in living and fixed cells. CRISPR-mediated bioimaging has inherent advantages over the gold standard of fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH), including fast imaging, cost-effectiveness, and ease of preparation. Existing reviews have provided a detailed classification and overview of the principles of CRISPR-mediated bioimaging. However, the exploitation of potential clinical applicability of this bioimaging technique is still limited. Therefore, analyzing the potential value of CRISPR-mediated in-situ imaging is of great significance to the development of bioimaging. In this review, we initially discuss the available CRISPR-mediated imaging systems from the following aspects: summary of imaging substances, the design and optimization of bioimaging strategies, and factors influencing CRISPR-mediated in-situ detection. Subsequently, we highlight the potential of CRISPR-mediated bioimaging for application in biomedical research and clinical practice. Furthermore, we outline the current bottlenecks and future perspectives of CRISPR-based bioimaging. We believe that this review will facilitate the potential integration of bioimaging-related research with current clinical workflow.