A Swell Treatment

Like old lubricant glooped over time into sticky residue jamming a bicycle chain, sticky mucus around organs of the body can cause real problems. This is what happens in people with cystic fibrosis – one of the most common genetic conditions, and one without a cure. Researchers in search of treatments trialled a new version of a well-known gene editing technique on organoids – miniature artificial organ structures. Using this ‘prime editing’, they replaced the faulty section of DNA with healthy sequences in cells with cystic fibrosis. Healthy organoids swell (right) when a substance called forskolin is added, but those with the cystic fibrosis mutation do not because of a fault in a molecular channel that causes the mucus build up. Following treatment, organoids showed the swelling behaviour, illustrating that the gene editing was successful and safe, and swelling hopes that these approaches could eventually be used to help patients.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image by Eyleen de Poel
• University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Life Science Alliance, August 2021