Re:Jailed baby gene scientist ‘should be made responsible’ f...
by daniel-thompson on Saturday March 19, 2022 @10:02PM
(#30739352)
The change that has been studied is a naturally-occurring 32 base pair deletion of the CCR5 gene (see https://www.google.com/search?q=ccr5+delta+32). In the literature, this allele is called CCR5-Δ32, and it modifies the expression of the CCR5 protein by, among other things, eliminating the receptor used by some HIV strains.
He Jiankui intended to use CRISPR to effect CCR5-Δ32, but didn't succeed; instead, his use of CRISPR made other, never-studied-before mutations to the CCR5 gene.
Will those mutations result in a CCR5 protein which confers HIV resistance? Probably, at least to some strains, since as far as we know, the full CCR5 gene is needed for an HIV-compatible receptor on the CCR5 protein.
Will they have other effects? What is their safety profile? These mutations have never been studied before, so no one knows.
He Jiankui intended to use CRISPR to effect CCR5-Δ32, but didn't succeed; instead, his use of CRISPR made other, never-studied-before mutations to the CCR5 gene.
Will those mutations result in a CCR5 protein which confers HIV resistance? Probably, at least to some strains, since as far as we know, the full CCR5 gene is needed for an HIV-compatible receptor on the CCR5 protein.
Will they have other effects? What is their safety profile? These mutations have never been studied before, so no one knows.
See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6813942/#__p275 for more on this.