Why in News?

• A new study published in the journal Nature Communications has warned of the potential consequences of gene editing technology, which is still not fully understood.

What are the Key findings?

• Using Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) to delete harmful disease-causing mutations could create more problems
• CRISPR could lead to extensive gene copying from one parent to another, potentially increasing the risk of diseases
• The extent of the DNA damage induced by CRISPR and how cells respond to it is still not fully known
• The technology used to test gene-edited embryos could reduce the accuracy of genetic testing, leading to the misdiagnosis of embryos.
• The researchers concluded that such limitations must be addressed before gene editing technology can be used.
• Previously, a Chinese scientist who announced the birth of gene-edited twins in 2018, had used CRISPR to make the embryos resistant to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

About Gene-editing:

• Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome.
• Three technology mostly used for gene-editing are CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs).

What is the Difference between Genome and Gene?

What is Genome?

• A genome refers to all of the genetic material in an organism, and the human genome is mostly the same in all people, but a very small part of the DNA does vary between one individual and another.
• Every organism’s genetic code is contained in its DNA, the building blocks of life.
• The discovery that DNA is structured as a “double helix” by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, started the quest for understanding how genes dictate life, its traits, and what causes diseases.
• Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism.
• In humans, a copy of the entire genome contains more than 3 billion DNA base pairs.