Abstract
Cytosine base editors and adenine base editors (ABEs) can correct point mutations predictably and independent of Cas9-induced double-stranded DNA breaks (which causes substantial indel formation) and homology-directed repair (which typically leads to low editing efficiency). Here, we show, in adult mice, that a subretinal injection of a lentivirus expressing an ABE and a single-guide RNA targeting a de novo nonsense mutation in the Rpe65 gene corrects the pathogenic mutation with up to 29% efficiency and with minimal formation of indel and off-target mutations, despite the absence of the canonical NGG sequence as a protospacer-adjacent motif. The ABE-treated mice displayed restored RPE65 expression and retinoid isomerase activity, and near-normal levels of retinal and visual functions. Our findings motivate the further testing of ABEs for the treatment of inherited retinal diseases and for the correction of pathological mutations with non-canonical protospacer-adjacent motifs.
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Data availability
The main data supporting the results of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. The deep-sequencing data are available from the Sequence Read Archive under accession number PRJNA644016.
Change history
12 February 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-020-00652-2
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Acknowledgements
We thank A. Daruwalla, H. Hashimoto, A. Lewin and A. Browne for technical assistance and providing materials. We are also grateful to members of the Palczewski laboratory for helpful comments regarding this study. K.P. is the Leopold Chair of Ophthalmology at the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, Irvine. This research was supported in part by grants to K.P. from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (nos. EY009339, EY027283, EY025451 and EY019312) and the Research to Prevent Blindness Stein Innovation Award. S.S. was supported by NIH grant nos. F30EY029136, T32GM007250 and T32EY024236. E.H.C. was supported by NIH grant nos. T32GM007250 and T32GM008803. H.L. was supported by Fight for Sight, the Eye and Tissue Bank Foundation (Finland), The Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Orion Research Foundation. G.A.N. was supported as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellow of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. P.D.K. was supported by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (I01BX004939). We also acknowledge support from a Research to Prevent Blindness unrestricted grant to the Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, Irvine.
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S.S., E.H.C. and K.P. conceived of the strategy and designed the experiments. S.S. and E.H.C. designed, performed and analysed the in vitro experiments. S.S., E.H.C., H.L., A.T.F., D.C.L., Z.D. and P.D.K. designed, performed and analysed the in vivo experiments. G.A.N., W.-H.Y. and D.R.L. performed and analysed the off-target activity. S.S., E.H.C. and K.P. wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript.
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D.R.L. is a consultant and co-founder of Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Editas Medicine and Pairwise Plants, companies that use genome editing.
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Supplementary Methods, Figs. 1–9, Tables 1–4 and references.
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Suh, S., Choi, E.H., Leinonen, H. et al. Restoration of visual function in adult mice with an inherited retinal disease via adenine base editing. Nat Biomed Eng 5, 169–178 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-020-00632-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-020-00632-6
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