BASE EDITING: A PROMISING TOOL FOR GENETIC MANIPULATION IN MAMMALIAN SOMATIC AND STEM CELL LINES

Abstract

The CRISPR system enables precise editing in genomic DNA but relies on intracellular homology-directed recombination (HDR) repair pathways and is extremely inefficient. Base editing technology developed based on the CRISPR/Cas9 system builds three Base editors (BE) by fusing nucleases that have lost cutting activity with different base deaminases: Cytosine base editor (CBE) and Adenine base editor (ABE) and Glycosylase base editors (GBE). These two types of editors can complete the substitution of C > T (G > A) or A > G (T > C) at gene target sites without producing DNA double-strand breaks, and finally achieve accurate base editing. At present, base editing technology has been widely used in gene therapy, animal model construction, precision animal breeding, gene function analysis, and other fields, providing a powerful technical tool for basic and applied research. This paper summarizes the development and optimization process of base editing technology, and its application in livestock and poultry, to provide a reference for researchers in related fields to use base editing systems.