School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
Prog Mol Biol Transl Sci. 2021;180:21-68. doi: 10.1016/bs.pmbts.2021.01.004. Epub 2021 Mar 23.
Precise gene editing techniques are paramount to gain deeper insights into the biological processes such as host-parasite interactions, drug resistance mechanisms, and gene-function relationships. Discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 system has spearheaded mechanistic understanding of protozoan parasite biology as evident from the number of reports in the last decade. Here, we have described the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in understanding the biology of medically important protozoan parasites such as Plasmodium, Leishmania, Trypanosoma, Babesia and Trichomonas. In spite of intrinsic difficulties in genome editing in these protozoan parasites, CRISPR-Cas9 has acted as a catalyst for faster generation of desired transgenic parasites. Modifications in the CRISPR-Cas9 system for improving the efficiency have been useful in better understanding the molecular mechanisms associated with repair of double strand breaks in the parasites. Moreover, improvement in reagents used for CRISPR mediated gene editing have been instrumental in addressing the issue of non-specificity and toxicity for therapeutic use. These application-based modifications may help in further increasing the efficiency of gene editing in protozoan parasites.
精确的基因编辑技术对于深入了解宿主-寄生虫相互作用、药物耐药机制和基因功能关系等生物学过程至关重要。CRISPR-Cas9 系统的发现，从过去十年中发表的大量报告中可以明显看出，推动了原生动物寄生虫生物学的机制理解。在这里，我们描述了 CRISPR-Cas9 在理解医学上重要的原生动物寄生虫生物学中的应用，如疟原虫、利什曼原虫、锥虫、巴贝斯虫和滴虫。尽管这些原生动物寄生虫的基因组编辑存在内在困难，但 CRISPR-Cas9 已成为更快产生所需转基因寄生虫的催化剂。为提高效率而对 CRISPR-Cas9 系统进行的修改有助于更好地理解与寄生虫双链断裂修复相关的分子机制。此外，用于 CRISPR 介导的基因编辑的试剂的改进对于解决非特异性和毒性问题以用于治疗具有重要意义。这些基于应用的修改可能有助于进一步提高原生动物寄生虫基因编辑的效率。
