Approximately 140 million people worldwide are homozygous carriers of APOE4(ε4),a strong genetic risk factor for late onset familial and sporadic Alzheimer’s disease(AD),91%of whom will develop AD at earlier age tha...Approximately 140 million people worldwide are homozygous carriers of APOE4(ε4),a strong genetic risk factor for late onset familial and sporadic Alzheimer’s disease(AD),91%of whom will develop AD at earlier age than heterozygous carriers and noncarriers.Susceptibility to AD could be reduced by targeted editing of APOE4,but a technical basis for controlling the off-target effects of base editors is necessary to develop low-risk personalized gene therapies.Here,we first screened eight cytosine base editor variants at four injection stages(from 1-to 8-cell stage),and found that FNLS-YE1 variant in 8-cell embryos achieved the comparable base conversion rate(up to 100%)with the lowest bystander effects.In particular,80%of AD-susceptibleε4 allele copies were converted to the AD-neutralε3 allele in humanε4-carrying embryos.Stringent control measures combined with targeted deep sequencing,whole genome sequencing,and RNA sequencing showed no DNA or RNA off-target events in FNLS-YE1-treated human embryos or their derived stem cells.Furthermore,base editing with FNLS-YE1 showed no effects on embryo development to the blastocyst stage.Finally,we also demonstrated FNLS-YE1 could introduce known protective variants in human embryos to potentially reduce human susceptivity to systemic lupus erythematosus and familial hypercholesterolemia.Our study therefore suggests that base editing with FNLS-YE1 can efficiently and safely introduce known preventive variants in 8-cell human embryos,a potential approach for reducing human susceptibility to AD or other genetic diseases.展开更多
基金supported by Chinese National Science and Technology major project R&D Program of China(2018YFC2000101)Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Science(XDB32060000)+7 种基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.31871502,31901047,31925016,91957122,82021001,and 31922048)Basic Frontier Scientific Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences From 0 to 1 original innovation project(ZDBS-LYSM001)Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project(2018SHZDZX05)Shanghai City Committee of Science and Technology Project(18411953700,18JC1410100,19XD1424400 and 19YF1455100)Innovative Research Team of High-Level Local Universities in Shanghai(SHSMU-ZDCX20212200 and SHSMU-ZLCX20210200)International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences(153D31KYSB20170059)Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China(2020M681417 and 2021T140684)Sailing Program of Shanghai(21YF1453000)(to J.H.).
文摘Approximately 140 million people worldwide are homozygous carriers of APOE4(ε4),a strong genetic risk factor for late onset familial and sporadic Alzheimer’s disease(AD),91%of whom will develop AD at earlier age than heterozygous carriers and noncarriers.Susceptibility to AD could be reduced by targeted editing of APOE4,but a technical basis for controlling the off-target effects of base editors is necessary to develop low-risk personalized gene therapies.Here,we first screened eight cytosine base editor variants at four injection stages(from 1-to 8-cell stage),and found that FNLS-YE1 variant in 8-cell embryos achieved the comparable base conversion rate(up to 100%)with the lowest bystander effects.In particular,80%of AD-susceptibleε4 allele copies were converted to the AD-neutralε3 allele in humanε4-carrying embryos.Stringent control measures combined with targeted deep sequencing,whole genome sequencing,and RNA sequencing showed no DNA or RNA off-target events in FNLS-YE1-treated human embryos or their derived stem cells.Furthermore,base editing with FNLS-YE1 showed no effects on embryo development to the blastocyst stage.Finally,we also demonstrated FNLS-YE1 could introduce known protective variants in human embryos to potentially reduce human susceptivity to systemic lupus erythematosus and familial hypercholesterolemia.Our study therefore suggests that base editing with FNLS-YE1 can efficiently and safely introduce known preventive variants in 8-cell human embryos,a potential approach for reducing human susceptibility to AD or other genetic diseases.
