Can a slurred, grainy 10 second video delight and hold your breath? Yes, if it shows the gene editing process.
The visualization of the revolutionary CRISPR gene editing technology is a credit to researchers at the University of Tokyo and Kanazawa University. They posted a video showing the CRISPR-Cas9 system chewing on a piece of DNA in real time.
According to scientists, the work of the "molecular scissors" is going exactly as they expected (although no one has seen the process itself before).
Yellow drop - Cas9 enzyme, brown threads - DNA.
As a reminder, the CRISPR system is based on a molecular antiviral mechanism that was found in bacteria. Its key component is the Cas9 enzyme borrowed from unicellular organisms. It is controlled by a short piece of genetic code - the RNA guide. It points to the right piece of DNA, and the strand is cut at that point.
Thanks to this method, researchers can modify the genome of any organism - plants, animals and humans, including the human embryo.
Scientists understand how the mechanism works, but until now it remained a mystery what exactly happens at the site of the incision. Only thanks to modern high-precision visualization methods, specialists were able to see for themselves and show others this process.
To do this, the scientists used high-speed atomic force microscopy. Let us explain that a scanning atomic force microscope has a micromechanical probe called a cantilever. The pointed end of this probe is constantly lowered towards the surface and then deflected from it.
Promotional video:
The laser detects small changes in the cantilever deflections during such movements. These changes are recorded, and then an image of what the probe scanned is created from them.
In this way, Japanese researchers obtained the world's first video of the CRISPR engine. They talked in more detail about their work in an article that was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Yulia Vorobyova