• Mohammad Ali Khosravi, Maryam Abbasalipour, Jean-Paul Concordet, Berg Johannes Vom JV Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland., Sirous Zeinali, Arash Arashkia, Kayhan Azadmanesh, Thorsten Buch, and Morteza Karimipoor.
• Department of Molecular Medicine, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: mkhosravi96@gmail.com.
• Eur. J. Pharmacol. 2019 Jul 5; 854: 398-405.

AbstractHemoglobinopathies, such as β-thalassemia, and sickle cell disease (SCD) are caused by abnormal structure or reduced production of β-chains and affect millions of people worldwide. Hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin (HPFH) is a condition which is naturally occurring and characterized by a considerable elevation of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) in adult red blood cells. Individuals with compound heterozygous β-thalassemia or SCD and HPFH have milder clinical symptoms. So, HbF reactivation has long been sought as an approach to mitigate the clinical symptoms of β-thalassemia and SCD. Using CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing strategy, we deleted a 200bp genomic region within the human erythroid-specific BCL11A (B-cell lymphoma/leukemia 11A) enhancer in KU-812, KG-1, and K562 cell lines. In our study, deletion of 200bp of BCL11A erythroid enhancer including GATAA motif leads to strong induction of γ-hemoglobin expression in K562 cells, but not in KU-812 and KG-1 cells. Altogether, our findings highlight the therapeutic potential of CRISPR-Cas9 as a precision genome editing tool for treating β-thalassemia. In addition, our data indicate that KU-812 and KG-1 cell lines are not good models for studying HbF reactivation through inactivation of BCL11A silencing pathway.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

24 keywords...

hide…