CRISPR-based genome editing technology and its applications in oil crops

Oil crops,mainly comprised of soybean,rapeseed,groundnut,sunflower and etc.,have provided substantial edible oil and other tremendous nutrients for human beings,as well as valuable biofuels for associated industries.The genetic improvement of significant oil crops and/or domesticating novel high-yielding oil crops are in urgent need to cope with the ever-increasing demand for various oil crop products.CRISPR(Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)-based genome editing technology,born a few years ago,edits stretches of DNA in a targeted and RNA-dependent fashion.The Characteristics of targeted mutagenesis and easy manipulation owned by the technology make it have been applied to many plants and exhibited great potential in the genetic improvement of many important oil crops.In the face of growing need for oil crop products and the rapid developments in CRISPR-based genome editing technology,a critical review regarding the technology and its application in oil crops is badly required to provide references for the better use of this technology to modify the oil crops for higher yield.In this review paper,we briefly described the CRISPR-based genome editing technology and summarized its applications and future prospects in oil crops.

CRISPR-based riboswitches for redirecting the fate of cancer cells

With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China,the research team led by Dr.Liu Yuchen(刘宇辰)at the State Engineering Laboratory of Medical Key Technologies Application of Synthetic Biology,Shenzhen Second People’s Hospital,the First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University,developed a type of CRISPR-based riboswitch,which was published in Nature Methods(2016,doi:10.

Blossom of CRISPR technologies and applications in disease treatment

Since 2013,the CRISPR-based bacterial antiviral defense systems have revolutionized the genome editing field.In addition to genome editing,CRISPR has been developed as a variety of tools for gene expression regulations,live cell chromatin imaging,base editing,epigenome editing,and nucleic acid detection.Moreover,in the context of further boosting the usability and feasibility of CRISPR systems,novel CRISPR systems and engineered CRISPR protein mutants have been explored and studied actively.With the flourish of CRISPR technologies,they have been applied in disease treatment recently,as in gene therapy,cell therapy,immunotherapy,and antimicrobial therapy.Here we present the developments of CRISPR technologies and describe the applications of these CRISPR-based technologies in disease treatment.

Current status and perspectives of regulatory T cell-based therapy

The CD4FOXP3regulatory T(Treg)cells are essential for maintaining immune homeostasis in healthy individuals.Results from clinical trials of Treg cell-based therapies in patients with graft versus host disease(GVHD),type 1 diabetes(T1D),liver transplantation,and kidney transplantation have demonstrated that adoptive transfer of Treg cells is emerging as a promising strategy to promote immune tolerance.Here we provide an overview of recent progresses and current challenges of Treg cell-based therapies.We summarize the completed and ongoing clinical trials with human Treg cells.Notably,a few of the chimeric antigen receptor(CAR)-Treg cell therapies are currently undergoing clinical trials.Meanwhile,we describe the new strategies for engineering Treg cells used in preclinical studies.Finally,we envision that the use of novel synthetic receptors,metabolic regulators,combined therapies,and in vivo generated antigen-specific or engineered Treg cells through the delivery of modified mRNA and CRISPR-based gene editing will further promote the advances of next-generation Treg cell therapies.

Advances in the Integration of Nucleic Acid Nanotechnology into CRISPR-Cas System

The microbial adaptive immune systems composed of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats(CRISPR)and CRISPR-associated protein(Cas),have been repurposed as revolutionary tool kits in many fields,including gene editing,transcriptional regulation,bioimaging and biosensing.Owing to the unprecedented programmability of base paring in nucleic acids,the progress in nucleic acid nanotechnology has brought new inspiration to CRISPR-Cas system.In this mini review,we summarized the research progress of the integration of nucleic acid nanotechnology into CRISPR-Cas system,including delivery of Cas proteins by DNA nanovehicles,conditional CRISPR-Cas system based on dynamic RNA nanotechnology,coupling of CRISPR-Cas and DNA origami.We also discussed the development prospects of the potential combinations of CRISPR-Cas system and nucleic acid nanotechnology.