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Rocca CJ, Rainaldi JN, Sharma J, Shi Y, Haquang JH, Luebeck J, Mali P, Cherqui S. CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing of Hematopoietic Stem Cells from Patients with Friedreich's Ataxia. Mol Ther Methods Clin Dev 2020; 17:1026-1036. [PMID: 32462051 PMCID: PMC7240056 DOI: 10.1016/j.omtm.2020.04.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2020] [Accepted: 04/27/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) is an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder caused by expansion of GAA repeats in intron 1 of the frataxin (FXN) gene, leading to significant decreased expression of frataxin, a mitochondrial iron-binding protein. We previously reported that syngeneic hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) transplantation prevented neurodegeneration in the FRDA mouse model YG8R. We showed that the mechanism of rescue was mediated by the transfer of the functional frataxin from HSPC-derived microglia/macrophage cells to neurons/myocytes. In this study, we report the first step toward an autologous HSPC transplantation using the CRISPR-Cas9 system for FRDA. We first identified a pair of CRISPR RNAs (crRNAs) that efficiently removes the GAA expansions in human FRDA lymphoblasts, restoring the non-pathologic level of frataxin expression and normalizing mitochondrial activity. We also optimized the gene-editing approach in HSPCs isolated from healthy and FRDA patients’ peripheral blood and demonstrated normal hematopoiesis of gene-edited cells in vitro and in vivo. The procedure did not induce cellular toxic effect or major off-target events, but a p53-mediated cell proliferation delay was observed in the gene-edited cells. This study provides the foundation for the clinical translation of autologous transplantation of gene-corrected HSPCs for FRDA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Celine J Rocca
- Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Joseph N Rainaldi
- Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Jay Sharma
- Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Yanmeng Shi
- Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Joseph H Haquang
- Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Jens Luebeck
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Prashant Mali
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Stephanie Cherqui
- Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
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