Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
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Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#2Does that mean if we introduce modified enzyme to circumvent this immunity - bacteries could steal it and become much more dangerous?
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#3This is very interesting, is it maybe that CRISPR resembles attacks we faced from viruses and the likes during our evolution as a species, that we have such high rates of immunity to it?
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#4Actual article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-018-0204-6
This is perhaps not surprising, but still very disheartening news
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#5Maybe you could deliver the CRISPR payload through some sort of pathogen-like mechanism such as a virus
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#6This is very interesting, is it maybe that CRISPR resembles attacks we faced from viruses and the likes during our evolution as a species, that we have such high rates of immunity to it?
Per the article > "Michael Schmueck-Henneresse of Charité University Medicine Berlin, who led today’s study, said that he was initially surprised by the 96% finding. “But it made sense because the Streptococcus pyogenes bacterium is one of the most common causes for bacterial infections in humans and we have all been through multiple infections and potentially even been colonized by it,” "
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#7This is very interesting, is it maybe that CRISPR resembles attacks we faced from viruses and the likes during our evolution as a species, that we have such high rates of immunity to it?
The enzyme commonly used for gene editing is from a bacteria that is a common human pathogen. Bits of these bacteria (including their Cas9 protein) are recognized as foreign. Unfortunately, when gene-edited cells are expressing the Cas9 protein, bits of every protein in the cell, including Cas9, naturally get processed and presented on the surface of the cell. There are immune cells (T cells) that monitor for non-self protein bits on the surface of cells, and when non-self is detected, they kill that cell they perceive as infected.
There's a bit more nuance than this, but this makes it significantly more difficult to pull off gene editing in a human.
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#8This is very interesting, is it maybe that CRISPR resembles attacks we faced from viruses and the likes during our evolution as a species, that we have such high rates of immunity to it?
The enzyme commonly used for gene editing is from a bacteria that is a common human pathogen. Bits of these bacteria (including their Cas9 protein) are recognized as foreign. Unfortunately, when gene-edited cells are expressing the Cas9 protein, bits of every protein in the cell, including Cas9, naturally get processed and presented on the surface of the cell. There are immune cells (T cells) that monitor for non-sel…
Could this be a potential cancer therapy?
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#9[deleted]
Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study
#10Does that mean if we introduce modified enzyme to circumvent this immunity - bacteries could steal it and become much more dangerous?
It depends on how we make the enzyme. If it's made without involving life in any way, it's hard to imagine how bacteria would "learn" to make it after finding it. At most, opportunistic bacteria could better parasite people already loaded with enzymes from CRISPR treatment.
If we modify harmless bacteria to build the enzyme for us, then sure, the modification could well end up on harmful bacteria.