Zinc finger nucleases are useful to manipulate the genomes of many plants and animals including
arabidopsis,
tobacco,
soybean,
corn,
zebrafish,
frogs,
mice,
rats,
rabbits,
pigs,
cattle, and various types of mammalian cells. Zinc finger nucleases have also been used in a mouse model of
haemophilia and a clinical trial found CD4+ human T-cells with the
CCR5 gene disrupted by zinc finger nucleases to be safe as a potential treatment for
HIV/AIDS. ZFNs are also used to create a new generation of genetic disease models called
isogenic human disease models.
Disabling an allele ZFNs can be used to disable dominant mutations in heterozygous individuals by producing double-strand breaks (DSBs) in the DNA (see
Genetic recombination) in the mutant allele, which will, in the absence of a homologous template, be repaired by
non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). NHEJ repairs DSBs by joining the two ends together and usually produces no mutations, provided that the cut is clean and uncomplicated. In some instances, however, the repair is imperfect, resulting in deletion or insertion of base-pairs, producing
frame-shift and preventing the production of the harmful protein. To monitor the editing activity, a PCR of the target area amplifies both alleles and, if one contains an insertion, deletion, or mutation, it results in a heteroduplex single-strand bubble that cleavage assays can easily detect. ZFNs have also been used to modify disease-causing alleles in triplet repeat disorders. Expanded CAG/CTG repeat tracts are the genetic basis for more than a dozen inherited neurological disorders including
Huntington's disease,
myotonic dystrophy, and several
spinocerebellar ataxias. It has been demonstrated in human cells that ZFNs can direct double-strand breaks (DSBs) to CAG repeats and shrink the repeat from long pathological lengths to short, less toxic lengths. Recently, a group of researchers have successfully applied the ZFN technology to genetically modify the gol pigment gene and the ntl gene in zebrafish embryo. Specific zinc-finger motifs were engineered to recognize distinct DNA sequences. The ZFN-encoding mRNA was injected into one-cell embryos and a high percentage of animals carried the desired mutations and phenotypes. Their research work demonstrated that ZFNs can specifically and efficiently create heritable mutant alleles at loci of interest in the germ line, and ZFN-induced alleles can be propagated in subsequent generations. Similar research of using ZFNs to create specific mutations in zebrafish embryo has also been carried out by other research groups. The kdr gene in zebra fish encodes for the vascular endothelial growth factor-2 receptor. Mutagenic lesions at this target site was induced using ZFN technique by a group of researchers in US. They suggested that the ZFN technique allows straightforward generation of a targeted allelic series of mutants; it does not rely on the existence of species-specific
embryonic stem cell lines and is applicable to other vertebrates, especially those whose embryos are easily available; finally, it is also feasible to achieve targeted knock-ins in zebrafish, therefore it is possible to create human disease models that are heretofore inaccessible.
Allele editing ZFNs are also used to rewrite the sequence of an allele by invoking the
homologous recombination (HR) machinery to repair the DSB using the supplied DNA fragment as a template. The HR machinery searches for homology between the damaged chromosome and the extra-chromosomal fragment and copies the sequence of the fragment between the two broken ends of the chromosome, regardless of whether the fragment contains the original sequence. If the subject is homozygous for the target allele, the efficiency of the technique is reduced since the undamaged copy of the allele may be used as a template for repair instead of the supplied fragment.
Gene therapy The success of gene therapy depends on the efficient insertion of therapeutic
genes at an appropriate
chromosomal target site within the human
genome, without causing cell injury,
oncogenic mutations, or an
immune response. The construction of
plasmid vectors is simple and straightforward. Custom-designed ZFNs that combine the non-specific cleavage domain (N) of
FokI endonuclease with zinc-finger proteins (ZFPs) offer a general way to deliver a site-specific DSB to the genome, and stimulate local homologous recombination by several orders of magnitude. This makes targeted gene correction or genome editing a viable option in human cells. Since ZFN-encoding plasmids could be used to transiently express ZFNs to target a DSB to a specific gene locus in human cells, they offer an excellent way for targeted delivery of the therapeutic genes to a pre-selected chromosomal site. The ZFN-encoding plasmid-based approach has the potential to circumvent all the problems associated with the viral delivery of therapeutic genes. The first therapeutic applications of ZFNs are likely to involve
ex vivo therapy using a patient's own stem cells. After editing the stem cell genome, the cells could be expanded in culture and reinserted into the patient to produce differentiated cells with corrected functions. Initial targets likely include the causes of monogenic diseases, such as the IL2Rγ gene and the β-globin gene for gene correction and CCR5 gene for mutagenesis and disablement. == Potential problems ==