Famous technology is CRISPR/Cas9, which allows you to make changes in the genome of higher organisms, including humans, became a real breakthrough in genetics, and opened to scientists, almost endless possibilities for experimentation. It is bet in the hope to one day conquer diseases such as cancer, HIV, inherited genetic disease and many others. However, CRISPR/Cas9 is not a perfect tool, therefore, scientists are constantly trying to find him a decent alternative. It seems that scientists from the Cambridge Institute of broad finally did it.
The first experiments on the editing of genes in the genomes of living creatures date from the early twentieth century, beginning with the opening mechanism of induced mutagenesis. By the mid-twentieth century, scientists were able to accurately modify the genes of bacteria, but in order to make such changes in human genes, it still took several decades. System CRISPR/Cas9 originally opened in the late ‘ 80s as a defense mechanism of bacteria against viruses, really became a kind of revolution in science. It is based on CAS protein, cutting genetic sequences. At the moment, this technology is widely used in numerous experiments with editing of the genome of different organisms, including human.
New tool for genome editing, created at Cambridge, in contrast to CRISPR/Cas9, do not cut the chain of nucleotides, and replaces the point of it only everything you need without destroying the overall structure. This is done using a special enzyme which is needed to change the DNA of the individual pairs of nitrogenous bases. Such precision in editing genes in the foreseeable future will allow scientists to win over many inherited diseases, like sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis.
The revolutionary method, scientists have managed to test on a number of bacteria. In their DNA dot modified the gene responsible for resistance to a particular antibiotic. After which the bacteria lost every protection from this drug and began to die. But the scientists decided not to stay and ran a reverse experiment, returning the bacteria the same protection. The experiment also was a great success. A team of researchers believe that their editing tool is much more flexible and effective than CRISPR/Cas9, so over time it will displace the older system into the background. The research results were published in the journal Nature.
Scientists have created a revolutionary new tool for editing genes
Sergey Grey