Detect Cancer-Causing Mutations Twice as Fast Using Gene Editing Scissors

KAIST Professor Hyungkyu Park's Team Develops New Technology...100,000 Times Higher Sensitivity and 50% Reduced Time

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] Domestic researchers have developed a technology that can detect the presence of cancer-causing gene mutations much faster and more efficiently using gene scissors.

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on the 11th that Professor Hyun-Kyu Park's research team from the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering developed a new technology to detect gene mutations using the EXPAR reaction driven by the CRISPR-Cas9 system, known as gene scissors.

Generally, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is used to detect gene mutations. Existing gene mutation detection technologies have drawbacks such as low specificity, low detection performance, complex detection methods, and long detection times.

To overcome these limitations of current technologies, the research team enhanced detection specificity by utilizing the CRISPR system and significantly improved detection sensitivity through the EXPAR isothermal amplification reaction. They succeeded in detecting target gene mutations with high sensitivity (detection limit: 437 aM (attomolar)) within 30 minutes. This corresponds to approximately a 100,000-fold increase in amplification efficiency and about a 50% reduction in detection time compared to existing technologies.

The research team used a CRISPR system composed of two Cas9/sgRNA complexes to cut both ends of the gene mutation. The cleaved short double-stranded gene mutation triggered the EXPAR reaction, and by designing the EXPAR reaction products to generate a fluorescent signal, they detected the target gene mutation with high sensitivity and great accuracy.

Using this technology, the research team successfully detected HER2 and EGFR gene mutations within chromosomal DNA. These gene mutations are important biomarkers commonly used not only because they are involved in the development of breast and lung cancers but also to predict responses to specific therapeutic agents.

Professor Hyun-Kyu Park explained, "This technology can be greatly utilized for early diagnosis of various diseases and implementation of patient-tailored treatments." The research results were selected as the back cover paper of issue 15 in 2021 of the international journal Nanoscale, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, last month on the 14th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.