Cell: A new era of mitochondrial genome editing has begun

From the discovery of the first restriction endonuclease in 1968, the invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 1985, to the demonstration of CRISPR-mediated genome editing technology in 2013, each new breakthrough in biotechnology has further improved our ability to manipulate DNA, the blueprint for life

However, despite the great success of gene editing in the nuclear genome of cells, scientists have been unsuccessful in editing mitochondria, which also have their own genomes

"Some very serious genetic diseases arise due to defects in mitochondrial DNA

The mitochondrial genome is inherited from the maternal line

"Another problem is the lack of animal models for these mitochondrial diseases

As such, reliable techniques for editing mitochondrial DNA are one of the last frontiers of genome engineering, which must be explored in order to conquer all known genetic diseases, and which the world's most elite scientists have worked hard to make a reality for years

In 2020, researchers led by David R.

"We started thinking about ways to overcome these limitations," said the authors.

The researchers created TALED by fusing three different components

An interesting aspect of TALED is the ability of TadA8e to perform A-to-G editing in mitochondria with double-stranded DNA (dsDNA)

The researchers speculate that DddAtox can gain access to dsDNA by transiently unwinding double strands

The team demonstrated the new technique by creating single-cell clones containing the desired mtDNA edits

Journal Reference :

1. Sung-Ik Cho, Seonghyun Lee, Young Geun Mok, Kayeong Lim, Jaesuk Lee, Ji Min Lee, Eugene Chung, Jin-Soo Kim.