Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc., Coralville, IA, USA.
Nat Med. 2021 Apr;27(4):677-687. doi: 10.1038/s41591-021-01284-y. Epub 2021 Mar 18.
β-Thalassemia pathology is due not only to loss of β-globin (HBB), but also to erythrotoxic accumulation and aggregation of the β-globin-binding partner, α-globin (HBA1/2). Here we describe a Cas9/AAV6-mediated genome editing strategy that can replace the entire HBA1 gene with a full-length HBB transgene in β-thalassemia-derived hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), which is sufficient to normalize β-globin:α-globin messenger RNA and protein ratios and restore functional adult hemoglobin tetramers in patient-derived red blood cells. Edited HSPCs were capable of long-term and bilineage hematopoietic reconstitution in mice, establishing proof of concept for replacement of HBA1 with HBB as a novel therapeutic strategy for curing β-thalassemia.
β-地中海贫血的病理不仅源于β-球蛋白(HBB)的缺失,还源于毒性红系细胞内β-球蛋白结合伴侣α-球蛋白(HBA1/2)的积累和聚集。在此,我们描述了一种 Cas9/AAV6 介导的基因组编辑策略,它可以将 HBA1 基因的全长替换为β-地中海贫血衍生造血干细胞和祖细胞(HSPCs)中的全长 HBB 转基因,足以使β-球蛋白:α-球蛋白信使 RNA 和蛋白质的比值正常化,并在患者来源的红细胞中恢复功能性成人血红蛋白四聚体。编辑后的 HSPCs 能够在小鼠中进行长期的双谱系造血重建,为用 HBB 替代 HBA1 作为治疗β-地中海贫血的新策略提供了概念验证。