State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Center for Genome Editing, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Innovative Academy of Seed Design, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100864, China.
Science. 2019 Apr 19;364(6437):292-295. doi: 10.1126/science.aaw7166. Epub 2019 Feb 28.
Cytosine and adenine base editors (CBEs and ABEs) are promising new tools for achieving the precise genetic changes required for disease treatment and trait improvement. However, genome-wide and unbiased analyses of their off-target effects in vivo are still lacking. Our whole-genome sequencing analysis of rice plants treated with the third-generation base editor (BE3), high-fidelity BE3 (HF1-BE3), or ABE revealed that BE3 and HF1-BE3, but not ABE, induce substantial genome-wide off-target mutations, which are mostly the C→T type of single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) and appear to be enriched in genic regions. Notably, treatment of rice with BE3 or HF1-BE3 in the absence of single-guide RNA also results in the rise of genome-wide SNVs. Thus, the base-editing unit of BE3 or HF1-BE3 needs to be optimized in order to attain high fidelity.
胞嘧啶和腺嘌呤碱基编辑器(CBEs 和 ABEs)是实现疾病治疗和性状改良所需精确遗传变化的有前途的新工具。然而,其在体内的全基因组和无偏分析的脱靶效应仍缺乏研究。我们对用第三代碱基编辑器(BE3)、高保真 BE3(HF1-BE3)或 ABE 处理的水稻植株进行的全基因组测序分析表明,BE3 和 HF1-BE3 而非 ABE 会诱导大量全基因组脱靶突变,这些突变大多为 C→T 型单核苷酸变异(SNVs),且似乎在基因区域富集。值得注意的是,即使在不存在单引导 RNA 的情况下,用 BE3 或 HF1-BE3 处理水稻也会导致全基因组 SNVs 的增加。因此,需要对 BE3 或 HF1-BE3 的碱基编辑单元进行优化,以实现高保真度。