CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat) gene editing has a track record of enabling the successful editing of DNA. This is true across the board, in human, plant, bacteria, and virus cells. CRISPR’s efficiency, simplicity, ability to target multiple genes simultaneously, and easy customization of target DNA make it advantageous over other gene editing techniques. That said, CRISPR gene editing does come with some limitations. For example, ethical issues can arise from CRISPR editing on human embryos, and CRISPR techniques can affect regions of DNA outside the target. So, technique development and continuous evaluation are vital.
Here, BioTechniques discusses the best practices when utilizing CRISPR techniques to overcome these limitations, current challenges in CRISPR use, recent developments in CRISPR, and the applications CRISPR might prove useful for in future.
Best CRISPR Gene Editing Practices
Researchers can follow various practices to ensure high-quality standards while performing CRISPR gene editing. These are three of the most important regardless of the technique used.
- Before proceeding with gene editing, researchers should ensure they select the best method for their research question. There are many CRISPR technologies available for cell lines in different medical and scientific fields, and different systems are better choices for different cell and tissue types.
- Researchers should use software and technologies that support CRISPR techniques. There are lots of technologies on offer, and each piece of software brings different advantages to the CRISPR process. Researchers should select technologies that are appropriate to the cells involved.
- Researchers should keep ethics in mind when applying CRISPR techniques. There are regulations in place to ensure that research teams comply with good ethical practices while undertaking CRISPR. This is especially important in research that involves performing gene editing on human embryos. Usually, regulations ban this kind of research. However, where the benefits of CRISPR outweigh the drawbacks, a process involving human subjects may be considered ethical. In this case, researchers must meet all legal considerations and uphold safety and transparency.
The Challenges of CRISPR Gene Editing
Two of the biggest challenges associated with CRISPR stem from measuring the efficacy of the selected technique and upholding ethical practices.
Measuring CRISPR Gene Editing Efficacy
Measuring the efficacy of CRISPR can lead to many challenges, especially as the tools required are often costly. For example, scientists only used to measure the efficacy of CRISPR in the places where they created edits. Now, they often need to interrogate the whole genome. Not only does this require modern tools, but interrogating the entire genome can generate a huge amount of data to examine.
Upholding Ethical Practices
The use of CRISPR has sparked debate over its ethical use. This debate is especially controversial in applications that involve human embryos. However, many individuals are more willing to accept CRISPR experiments on human embryos where there is a pressing medical need for such research. Therefore, although many individuals question whether or not we should use CRISPR at all, it can be more helpful to question when it is appropriate to perform gene editing experiments. For example, as there are already multiple methods used to test for HIV, there isn’t a pressing need for the use of CRISPR tools to test for HIV. However, CRISPR could prove essential to diagnosing and treating genetic disorders that have few testing tools.
Many individuals form their opinion on a gene editing technique’s ethical use when they have evidence that a technique either is or isn’t safe for a particular application. Unfortunately, CRISPR can’t always overcome problems in gene editing, and its effects vary depending on the mutation. Therefore, the process can be unpredictable. For example, although there is evidence that CRISPR is safe in some applications, we lack advanced research into gene editing on human embryos. Therefore, it’s difficult to make informed decisions about unborn children, and many individuals argue that we shouldn’t pursue studies involving human embryos until science has progressed further.
To put this into perspective, a BioTechniques survey that investigated researchers’ opinions on the ethical use of CRISPR concluded that:
- 63% of respondents agreed with the practice of experimenting on human embryos that won’t be brought to term.
- 55% agreed with the practice of preventing serious genetic disorders in human embryos that will be brought to term.
- 9% agreed with the practice of enhancing traits in the healthy range in human embryos that will be brought to term. (There is no medical need to make these edits.)
- 18% disagreed with CRISPR practices altogether.
Recent Developments in CRISPR Gene Editing
Although scientists are yet to optimize the safety and efficiency of CRISPR, they have made significant progress in gene editing techniques over recent years. For example, researchers can now apply advanced technologies to identify the efficiency of a CRISPR technique and any faults in the process. Modern algorithms save time and uncover important insights that help researchers target efficiency and find and edit proteins. This means it’s now much easier to identify and edit genes that affect protein expressions.
What the Future Holds for CRISPR Gene Editing
As CRISPR is one of the fastest-moving fields of technology, it has rapidly become a solution for a wide range of applications. This is, in part, because CRISPR is both an editing tool and a detection tool. Over upcoming years, CRISPR should progress enough to allow scientists to:
- Make quick diagnoses and determine whether a patient has a specific virus.
- Perform advanced screening processes that search and interrogate genomes to identify genetic changes.
- Target obesity and diseases like heart disease and leukemia.
Scientists should also be able to pair CRISPR technologies with additional technologies to advance precision editing to a level that wouldn’t be possible with CRISPR gene editing alone.
Disease aside, CRISPR should gain traction in the agriculture and plant production sector. CRISPR techniques have the potential to help manufacturers produce healthier food products. They also have the potential to help farmers breed a higher proportion of female chickens and cattle to minimize the number of male animals that are slaughtered upon birth because farms don’t need them for eggs and milk.
How BioTechniques Provides Life Science Research
Established in 1983, BioTechniques was the first publication to review laboratory methodologies instead of focusing entirely on treatments. Since then, BioTechniques has consistently analyzed the techniques and methods (and the reproducibility of these) that scientists have developed to produce therapies and treatments. Aside from CRISPR gene editing, some of the methods that BioTechniques cover include western blotting, next-generation sequencing, chromatography, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Users all over the world read the print journal and access the BioTechniques website to keep up with the latest in the life sciences sector.