Developed by improving on existing gene editing methods, Chinese scientists ' new programmable chromosome engineering system can manipulate DNA fragments 3.5 times more efficiently than the original enzyme editor - Photo: SCMP
A research team led by Professor Gao Caixia from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully solved the decades-old challenge of editing large stretches of DNA containing thousands to millions of base pairs.
Tools like Crispr have revolutionized gene editing in the past, but they have mostly worked on individual genes or a few base pairs. Precisely altering long stretches of DNA remains a challenge.
The research of Professor Cao Thai Ha's group was published in the scientific journal Cell , introducing the "programmable chromosome engineering" (PCE) system. This technology allows precise editing of very large DNA segments, especially effective in higher organisms such as plants.
According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing Branch), PCE can open up new directions in plant breeding, improving agricultural product characteristics and treating genetic diseases. In addition, it is an important stepping stone to create "artificial chromosomes", a promising platform in next-generation synthetic biology.
Professor Yin Hao, a gene editing expert at Wuhan University, called this "a very significant advance" and could lay the foundation for revolutionary breakthroughs in medicine and agriculture .
This journey began with Cre-Lox, an enzyme discovered in the 1980s that has played a key role in biomedicine for inserting, reversing, or replacing large stretches of DNA.
However, Cre-Lox has many limitations: efficiency drops sharply when the DNA segment to be edited is too long, it is easy to leave genetic "scars" and there is a risk of the change being reversed, making the results unstable.
Professor Cao Thai Ha's team redesigned the entire editing strategy to overcome the above weaknesses. As a result, PCE has an efficiency 3.5 times higher than Cre-Lox, completely eliminating genetic "scars" and minimizing the possibility of editing reversal.
Professor Doan Hao considers this a big step forward. He explains that in the past, to select a seed that meets the requirements, researchers may have to try editing up to 1,000 seeds. But with the new tool, this number can be reduced to just 100, saving a significant amount of time and effort.
"Over the past 40 years, this is almost a rare case, even unprecedented, when an enzyme has been successfully modified to enhance its ability to become a popular gene editing tool," said Professor Doan Hao.
The professor expressed hope that in the future, the PCE system could replace the Cre-Lox tools that are widely used in laboratories around the world , opening up new potential for medical research and agricultural engineering.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nhom-nghien-cuu-trung-quoc-tao-cong-cu-chinh-sua-chinh-xac-hang-trieu-doan-adn-20250811145220972.htm
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