2023-06-29 13:45:53
Genetic engineering applied to the human being raises many hopes and also misgivings. In any case, the progress of the techniques used seems unstoppable and now a scientific discovery puts humanity on the brink of a new threshold.
A team made up of, among others, Feng Zhang and Makoto Saito, from the Broad Institute (dependent on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, both institutions in the United States) has discovered a programmable system guided by RNA in eukaryotes, organisms which include animals, plants and fungi. It is the first such system to be discovered in eukaryotes.
The MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research has also participated in the work.
The new system is based on a protein called Fanzor.
The researchers have verified that the Fanzor proteins use the RNA as a guide to act on the DNA with great precision, and that these proteins can be reprogrammed to modify the genome of human cells.
The new system has the potential to be more easily delivered to human biological cells and tissues for therapeutic purposes than currently used techniques, such as CRISPR/Cas.
Part of the three-dimensional structure of a Fanzor protein (grey, yellow, light blue, and pink) in a complex with omega RNA (purple) and the DNA on which the system acts (red). Non-acting DNA is shown in dark blue. (Image: Zhang lab, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard / McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT)
CRISPR/Cas techniques were invented following the discovery of the CRISPR/Cas system in prokaryotes (bacteria and other single-celled organisms that lack a cell nucleus).
Zhang, Saito, and their colleagues report the technical details of their finding in the academic journal Nature, under the title “Fanzor is a eukaryotic programmable RNA-guided endonuclease.” (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
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