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Engineering monocyte/macrophage-specific glucocerebrosidase expression in human hematopoietic stem cells using genome editing
Nat Commun. 2020 Jul 3;11(1):3327. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17148-x.
Samantha G Scharenberg # 1, Edina Poletto # 2, Katherine L Lucot 3, Pasqualina Colella 1, Adam Sheikali 1, Thomas J Montine 3, Matthew H Porteus 4, Natalia Gomez-Ospina 5
Abstract:
...Current therapies for Gaucher disease include life-long intravenous administration of recombinant glucocerebrosidase and orally-available glucosylceramide synthase inhibitors. An alternative approach is to engineer the patient's own hematopoietic system to restore glucocerebrosidase expression, thereby replacing the affected cells, and constituting a potential one-time therapy for this disease. Here, we report an efficient CRISPR/Cas9-based approach that targets glucocerebrosidase expression cassettes with a monocyte/macrophage-specific element to the CCR5 safe-harbor locus in human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. The targeted cells generate glucocerebrosidase-expressing macrophages and maintain long-term repopulation and multi-lineage differentiation potential with serial transplantation. The combination of a safe-harbor and a lineage-specific promoter establishes a universal correction strategy and circumvents potential toxicity of ectopic glucocerebrosidase in the stem cells. Furthermore, it constitutes an adaptable platform for other lysosomal enzyme deficiencies.
PMID: 32620863
Free Full-Text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7335164/