A Novel Anti-Cancer Therapy: CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Editing

Xin-Zhu Chen; Rong Guo; Cong Zhao; Jing Xu; Hang Song; Hua Yu; Christian Pilarsky; Firzan Nainu; Jing-Quan Li; Xin-Ke Zhou; Jian-Ye Zhang

doi:10.3389/fphar.2022.939090

A Novel Anti-Cancer Therapy: CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Editing

Front Pharmacol. 2022 Jul 22:13:939090. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.939090. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xin-Zhu Chen^{1

2}, Rong Guo³, Cong Zhao⁴, Jing Xu⁵, Hang Song⁵, Hua Yu⁶, Christian Pilarsky⁷, Firzan Nainu⁸, Jing-Quan Li², Xin-Ke Zhou¹, Jian-Ye Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Guangzhou Municipal and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Molecular Target & Clinical Pharmacology, The NMPA and State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Fifth Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
² The First Affiliated Hospital, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Tuberculosis and Thoracic Tumor Research Institute, Beijing Chest Hospital, Beijing, China.
⁵ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Macao, China.
⁷ Department of Surgery, University Hospital of Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany.
⁸ Faculty of Pharmacy, Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Indonesia.

Abstract

Cancer becomes one of the main causes of human deaths in the world due to the high incidence and mortality rate and produces serious economic burdens. With more and more attention is paid on cancer, its therapies are getting more of a concern. Previous research has shown that the occurrence, progression, and treatment prognosis of malignant tumors are closely related to genetic and gene mutation. CRISPR/Cas9 has emerged as a powerful method for making changes to the genome, which has extensively been applied in various cell lines. Establishing the cell and animal models by CRISPR/Cas9 laid the foundation for the clinical trials which possibly treated the tumor. CRISPR-Cas9-mediated genome editing technology brings a great promise for inhibiting migration, invasion, and even treatment of tumor. However, the potential off-target effect limits its clinical application, and the effective ethical review is necessary. The article reviews the molecular mechanisms of CRISPR/Cas9 and discusses the research and the limitation related to cancer clinical trials.

Keywords: CRISPR/Cas9; anti-cancer therapy; ethics; gene editing technology; off-target effect.

Publication types

Review