Right: markedly reduced Nrl expression in retinal photoreceptor layer at 2.5 months after administration of AAV-CRISPR/Cas9 against Nrl; left: treatment with AAV-CRISPR/Cas9 against EGFP was used as a control WENHAN YU, NATIONAL EYE INSTITUTE, BETHESDA, MDDelivering a CRISPR/Cas9–based therapy directly to the eye via a viral vector can prevent retinal degeneration in a mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa, a team led by researchers at the National Eye Institute reported in Nature Communications today (March 14). Retinitis pigmentosa, which affects around one in 4,000 people, causes retinal degeneration that eventually leads to blindness. The inherited disorder has been mapped to more than 60 genes (and more than 3,000 mutations), presenting a challenge for researchers working toward a gene therapy. The results of this latest study suggest that a broader, gene-editing–based therapeutic approach could be used to target many of the genetic defects underlying retinitis pigmentosa.
“Given the lack of effective therapies for retinal degeneration, particularly the lack of therapies applicable to a broad range of different genetic varieties of this disease, this study represents a very exciting and important advance in our field,” Joseph Corbo, a neuropathologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who was not involved in the work, wrote in an email to The Scientist.
This combination of “CRISPR technology with an adeno-associated virus vector, a system tried and true for delivering genetic information to the retina, may represent the first step in a global treatment approach for rod-mediated degenerative disease,” Shannon Boye, whose University of Florida lab develops gene replacement strategies for eye disorders, wrote in an email to The Scientist.
Zhijian Wu, ...
