Molecular Cancer (Oct 2021)

Application of the CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing technique in basic research, diagnosis, and therapy of cancer

  • Huimin Zhang,
  • Chunhong Qin,
  • Changming An,
  • Xiwang Zheng,
  • Shuxin Wen,
  • Wenjie Chen,
  • Xianfang Liu,
  • Zhenghua Lv,
  • Pingchang Yang,
  • Wei Xu,
  • Wei Gao,
  • Yongyan Wu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12943-021-01431-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 1
pp. 1 – 22

Abstract

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Abstract The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for the development of the Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated nuclease9 (CRISPR/Cas9) gene editing technology that provided new tools for precise gene editing. It is possible to target any genomic locus virtually using only a complex nuclease protein with short RNA as a site-specific endonuclease. Since cancer is caused by genomic changes in tumor cells, CRISPR/Cas9 can be used in the field of cancer research to edit genomes for exploration of the mechanisms of tumorigenesis and development. In recent years, the CRISPR/Cas9 system has been increasingly used in cancer research and treatment and remarkable results have been achieved. In this review, we introduced the mechanism and development of the CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing system. Furthermore, we summarized current applications of this technique for basic research, diagnosis and therapy of cancer. Moreover, the potential applications of CRISPR/Cas9 in new emerging hotspots of oncology research were discussed, and the challenges and future directions were highlighted.

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