New Atlas
CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology is one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of recent decades, but there’s always room for improvement. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have developed a system they call CRISPR-Combo, which can edit multiple genes at once while also changing the expression of others in plants.
The CRISPR system is a powerful tool, allowing scientists to make cut-and-paste edits to specific genes in living organisms. That opened the possibility for new treatments for a range of diseases, including cancers, diabetes, genetic forms of blindness and blood diseases. Edits could also be made to improve crops and farm animals, enable new forms of pest control, and create useful new types of microbes.
Later developments improved on the CRISPR recipe. Some allowed for several different genes to be edited at the same time, while other versions avoided cutting DNA altogether, focusing instead on turning gene expression on or off as needed.
In the new study, the UMD researchers have combined both of these techniques into one tool, fittingly called CRISPR-Combo. Usually, one guide RNA strand performs either the editing or activation functions, meaning they can only do one or the other. For this study the team assigned the two functions to different RNA – the editing to the common Cas9, and the activation to a scaffold sgRNA.
The team tested the concept in several experiments. First, they used tomato and rice plants to demonstrate that they could perform both functions without any crossover – and the tests were successful…
