Gene Editing for Molecular Diagnostics
Gene editing is a form of genetic engineering in which the DNA sequence is altered within an organism to induce a new biological phenotype of interest. This can be done by inserting, deleting, modifying or replacing an individual or a series of nucleotides to alter the function of a gene.
Gene editing is widely used in research, diagnostic, and therapeutic applications. This technique is widely used in basic research to study the function of genes by knocking down or inducing gene expression and studying associated phenotypes, and it has also been used more recently in diagnostics and therapeutics to identify gene mutations and treat genetic disease.
With the discovery of CRISPR, novel and effective gene editing techniques have been used for the advancement of new diagnostics and therapeutics.
CRISPR-Cas Enzymes
CRISPR sequences are found in prokaryotic genomes and are incorporated into the bacterial genome after viral infection as a way to recognize and defend against future viral infections. This immune defense mechanism is achieved by using CRISPR associated proteins (Cas) enzymes to recognize viral sequences upon reinfection of the same virus and cleave the region of the viral genome that is complementary to the CRISPR sequence.
The CRISPR-Cas system has been used in research, diagnostics, and therapeutics as an advanced gene editing tool. This method uses a guide RNA complementary to the specific gene or sequence that should be edited and the Cas9 protein to form a complex which finds and cleaves the DNA region of interest, enabling replacement with a desired region of interest.
Several Cas enzymes can be recombinantly expressed and used for different applications, for example, Cas12 and Cas13 enzymes can be used for detecting DNA and RNA, respectively. When these enzymes are added to a sample with specific DNA or RNA targets with fluorescent reporters attached, a fluorescent signal will be produced if the sample is positive for the complementary DNA or RNA sequence.
At Fortis we custom develop and manufacture a range of Cas Enzymes for DNA and RNA detection and other gene editing applications.
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