Abstract
The superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) mutation is one of the most notable causes of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and modifying the mutant SOD1 gene is the best approach for the treatment of patients with ALS linked to the mutations in this gene. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated (Cas9)/sgRNA delivered by the adeno-associated virus (AAV) system is a powerful tool for genome editing in the central nervous system (CNS). Here, we tested the capacity of the AAV-SaCas9-sgRNA system to modify mutant SOD1 in SOD1G93A transgenic mice and found that AAV9-SaCas9-sgRNA5 deleted the SOD1 gene, improved the lifespan of SOD1G93A mice by 54.6%, and notably ameliorated the performance of ALS transgenic mice. An immunochemical analysis showed that the expression of mutant SOD1 was very weak in motor neurons expressing SaCas9-sgRNA5. Consequently, the area showing muscle atrophy was more notably restored in the group treated with SaCas9-sgRNA5 compared with the group treated with SaCas9-sgLacZ. In addition, deep sequencing did not show the indel mutation in the gene highly matched to sgRNA5. Hence, AAV9-SaCas9-sgRNA-based gene editing is a feasible potential treatment for patients with ALS linked to SOD1 mutations.
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Data availability
The genome sequence was obtained using an open source collaborative initiative and is available in Ensemble (http://asia.ensembl.org/Homo_sapiens/Info/Index). The CRISPR guide for off-target activities is the result of an open source collaborative initiative and is available in Cas-OFFinder (http://www.rgenome.net/cas-offinder/).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Professor Shao-Cong Sun (The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center) for the critical reading and editing of this manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (31371089 and 81171210).
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Duan, W., Guo, M., Yi, L. et al. The deletion of mutant SOD1 via CRISPR/Cas9/sgRNA prolongs survival in an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis mouse model. Gene Ther 27, 157–169 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41434-019-0116-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41434-019-0116-1
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