In-Vivo Gene Editing By NanotransducErs
Although CRISPR/Cas9 and enzyme-based editors hold promise for genome surgery by erasing harmful mutations while rewriting them in helpful ones, they still face critical barriers related to safety. Here, we propose a new concept of genome engineering based on nanotransducers (NTs), aiming to make previously impracticable applications of genome editing and transcriptional regulation by Cas9 safe. This methodology relies on the laser activation of a NT, which triggers consequently a thermo-switchable DNA double strand break or cleavage. The proposed technology implements a concept of multi-input AND gates, where the output (gene editing) is true only if multiple inputs are true at the same time (e.g. NT activation and recognition of 2 different loci). Indeed, the dream of the unique recognition of a specific genomic target from any potential off-target, given in the 3 billion base pairs of human genome, could be achievable.
MAIN COLLABORATORS
PROCHIMIA SURFACES SP.Z.O.O. (PL)
ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA (IT)/ Plasmon Nanotechnologies line
M-SQUARED LASERS LIMITED (UK)
LIONIX INTERNATIONAL BV (NL)
PUBLICATIONS
T. Schmidt, B. Berarducci, S. Konstantinidou, V. Raffa, CRISPR/Cas9 in the era of nanomedicine and synthetic biology, Drug Discovery Today, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2022.103375
Raffa, V. Force: A messenger of axon outgrowth (2022) Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2022.07.004
Di Franco, G., Usai, A., Piccardi, M., Cateni, P., Palmeri, M., Pollina, L.E., Gaeta, R., Marmorino, F., Cremolini, C., Dente, L., Massolo, A., Raffa, V., Morelli, L. Zebrafish Patient-Derived Xenograft Model to Predict Treatment Outcomes of Colorectal Cancer Patients (2022) Biomedicines, 10 (7), art. no. 1474, DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines10071474
Falconieri, A., Taparia, N., De Vincentiis, S., Cappello, V., Sniadecki, N.J., Raffa, V. Magnetically-actuated microposts stimulate axon growth (2022) Biophysical Journal, 121 (3), pp. 374-382. DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2021.12.041
D’Amora, M., Schmidt, T.J.N., Konstantinidou, S., Raffa, V., De Angelis, F., Tantussi, F. Effects of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles in Zebrafish (2022) Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity, 2022, art. no. 3313016, DOI: 10.1155/2022/3313016
D’amora, M., Raffa, V., De Angelis, F., Tantussi, F. Toxicological profile of plasmonic nanoparticles in zebrafish model (2021) International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 22 (12), art. no. 6372, DOI: 10.3390/ijms22126372