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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGene-editing Hack Yields Pinpoint Precision (Nature)
Disabled CRISPR enzyme allows efficient single-letter DNA changes.http://www.nature.com/news/gene-editing-hack-yields-pinpoint-precision-1.19773
"A painstaking re-engineering of the CRISPR gene-editing system has given researchers the ability to alter individual DNA letters efficiently in a given gene. The advance boosts the success of such edits, and could boost scientists ability to model human diseases and develop treatments for them.
Researchers have been quick to embrace a gene-editing tool called CRISPRCas9, which lets them modify targeted genes with unprecedented ease. But although it is easy to use the tool to wipe out a genes function, it has been difficult to fix a point mutation caused by a change in a single DNA letter in a given gene by correcting just the letter affected.
Those point mutations are important. It turns out that the majority of disease-associated human genetic variants are point mutations, says David Liu, a chemical biologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But current genome methods correct point mutations much less efficiently and much less cleanly than we can disrupt a gene.
...
There are hundreds of other disease-associated mutations that could be corrected using a C to U switch, says Liu. But the team is now working to expand its reach to other point mutations, and to try the technique in animals. Liu hopes that his tricked-out enzymes will make it easier to create animal models that carry human mutations associated with disease. And eventually, after years of testing and refinement, the modified Cas9 could even be used to treat disease.
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Good news.
tblue37
(65,403 posts)hill2016
(1,772 posts)T is DNA
Igel
(35,320 posts)However, one sure thing to trigger them is that GMOs via CRISPR aren't subject to regulation.
FDA regs require that some foreign gene be inserted. Then there's the round of obligatory testing and all the political and social fighting.
Removing a few base pairs to disable a gene or simply find a way to rearrange them is not inserting foreign genetic material. It's not covered by FDA regs.
This already applies to a mushroom where the gene that makes them discolor's been disabled. There's a potato like that, too.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601285/here-come-the-unregulated-gmos/#/set/id/601286/
Let's call them GEOs, genetically edited organisms. Plus it sounds all Earth-friendly.
hill2016
(1,772 posts)how artificial insulin is being made...
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Instead, they're falling for another round of the old organic industry "study" that "finds" glyphosate in such and such! Nevermind that the amount is infinitesimal, of course. Organic propaganda says "Be up in arms!" and "Be afraid!" so that's what they'll do.
Oh, well.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)"The mushroom is one of about 30 genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to sidestep the USDA regulatory system in the past five years. In each case, the agency's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has said that the organisms mostly plants do not qualify as something the agency must regulate. (Once a crop passes the USDA reviews, it may still undergo a voluntary review by the US Food and Drug Administration.)"
http://www.nature.com/news/gene-edited-crispr-mushroom-escapes-us-regulation-1.19754
It would be interesting what foods those happen to be.