Engineering CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutics for cancer precision medicine

Front Genet. 2024 Apr 25:15:1309175. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2024.1309175. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

The discovery of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) technology has revolutionized field of cancer treatment. This review explores usage of CRISPR/Cas9 for editing and investigating genes involved in human carcinogenesis. It provides insights into the development of CRISPR as a genetic tool. Also, it explores recent developments and tools available in designing CRISPR/Cas9 systems for targeting oncogenic genes for cancer treatment. Further, we delve into an overview of cancer biology, highlighting key genetic alterations and signaling pathways whose deletion prevents malignancies. This fundamental knowledge enables a deeper understanding of how CRISPR/Cas9 can be tailored to address specific genetic aberrations and offer personalized therapeutic approaches. In this review, we showcase studies and preclinical trials that show the utility of CRISPR/Cas9 in disrupting oncogenic targets, modulating tumor microenvironment and increasing the efficiency of available anti treatments. It also provides insight into the use of CRISPR high throughput screens for cancer biomarker identifications and CRISPR based screening for drug discovery. In conclusion, this review offers an overview of exciting developments in engineering CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutics for cancer treatment and highlights the transformative potential of CRISPR for innovation and effective cancer treatments.

Keywords: CRISPR/Cas9; CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutics; cancer treatment; precision medicine; preclinical studies.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. AG has received grant support from Mary and Georg C. Ehrnrooth Foundation, Otto A. Malm Foundation, and K. Albin Johanssons stiftelse sr Foundation.