Nanoparticles-mediated CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Therapy in Inherited Retinal Diseases: Applications, Challenges, and Emerging Opportunities

Overview

Journal J Nanobiotechnology

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Biotechnology

Date 2022 Dec 3

PMID 36463195

Authors

Yueh Chien

Yu-Jer Hsiao

Shih-Jie Chou

Ting-Yi Lin

Aliaksandr A Yarmishyn

Wei-Yi Lai

Meng-Shiue Lee

Yi-Ying Lin

Tzu-Wei Lin

De-Kuang Hwang

Tai-Chi Lin

Shih-Hwa Chiou

Shih-Jen Chen

Yi-Ping Yang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Inherited Retinal Diseases (IRDs) are considered one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. However, the majority of them still lack a safe and effective treatment due to their complexity and genetic heterogeneity. Recently, gene therapy is gaining importance as an efficient strategy to address IRDs which were previously considered incurable. The development of the clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) system has strongly empowered the field of gene therapy. However, successful gene modifications rely on the efficient delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 components into the complex three-dimensional (3D) architecture of the human retinal tissue. Intriguing findings in the field of nanoparticles (NPs) meet all the criteria required for CRISPR-Cas9 delivery and have made a great contribution toward its therapeutic applications. In addition, exploiting induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology and in vitro 3D retinal organoids paved the way for prospective clinical trials of the CRISPR-Cas9 system in treating IRDs. This review highlights important advances in NP-based gene therapy, the CRISPR-Cas9 system, and iPSC-derived retinal organoids with a focus on IRDs. Collectively, these studies establish a multidisciplinary approach by integrating nanomedicine and stem cell technologies and demonstrate the utility of retina organoids in developing effective therapies for IRDs.

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