• Prime editing: A review on application of a novel gene editing approach in treatment of cancer
  • Zahra Hemmati,1 Shahin Eghbalsaied,2 Saghar Yousefnia,3,*
    1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
    2. Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, Universitätsmedizin Göttingen (UMG), Göttingen, Germany
    3. Department of Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran


  • Introduction: Cancer is the second leading cause of death, with high rates of prevalence and mortality all over the world. It is characterized by unregulated cell proliferation resulting from oncogenes and tumor suppressor gene alterations. There are many traditional and novel strategies for the treatment of cancer. However, many side effects and recurrence after treatment have been reported due to the non-specific functions. Recently, a novel approach has been developed to treat various cancers by editing point mutations, insertions, and deletions on specific oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes by applying designed universal pegRNAs. There are five Prime Editors (PE) that can edit variants of these genes to raise levels of efficiency. This CRISPR-based genome editing technique has reduced off-target activity, so this generation is close to treating cancer without any side effects and chance of recurrence.
  • Methods: This review highlights the application of Prime Editing. It compares it with other gene editing techniques in the treatment of a variety of cancers, such as breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, human colorectal carcinoma, and liver cancer.
  • Results: It also targets mutations in several oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, including KRAS, TP53, CTNNB1, EMX1, HEK site3, HEK site5, PDCD1, and FANCF genes.
  • Conclusion: Therefore, this technique can be considered and developed as an efficient approach based on personalized medicine in treating different types of cancer.
  • Keywords: Prime editing; Cancer treatment; Mismatch repair; Universal pegRNAs; Nick-single-guide RNA(sgRNA);