Scientists are programming one of the world’s hardiest, most radiation-resistant organisms to rewrite a specific gene, allowing them to cure a common type of inherited high cholesterol. Dubbed TnpB and originating from the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, this exceptionally robust microbe also survives cold, dehydration, vacuum, and acid, making it an ideal tool for genetic editing.
Although the team has only tested its “genetic scissors” on mice models with an inherited predisposition to a type of high cholesterol called hypercholesterolemia, which currently affects 31 million Americans, the researchers believe their approach will one day allow them to cure high cholesterol in humans by essentially rewiring their genetic code.
Reprogramming TnpB to Cure High Cholesterol
In the published study outlining the new genetic reprogramming approach, the researchers note that genetic editing has shown significant promise in editing certain inherited health conditions by essentially “reprogramming” specialized bacteria to genetically edit the faulty gene in a person’s genetic code with a properly functioning one. However, the process, made famous by the CRISPR gene editing tool, has resulted in mixed successes.
One of the primary limiting factors of the CRISPR-Cas organism most commonly used in genetic editing is its size. According to the study authors, the microbe is too large to be precisely targeted, which “creates challenges when trying to deliver them to the right cells in the body.”
More recently, researchers in genetic editing have begun to focus on the organism’s “evolutionary progenitors,” some of which are much smaller than the CRISPR-Cas microbe. Among the most promising is TnpB, whose smaller size and hardiness offer scientists a new path for genetic editing.
These smaller progenitors are less efficient at reprogramming and show limited targeting ability due to their limited recognition requirements when binding DNA than the larger CRISPR-Cas microbes. Now, the researchers behind this study say they may have finally overcome that limitation, resulting in a much more efficient method of targeting TnpB to cure high cholesterol.
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