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According to recent research by scientists, pig organs can be cleaned of genes potentially infected with harmful viruses, after which they can be used for further transplantation to people. To destroy the dangerous traces of retroviruses, scientists used CRISPR / Cas9’s latest genomic editor, which serves as scissors and cuts out all the unnecessary elements in the DNA code, report researchers in a report in the journal Science. “It’s really an incredible discovery that will completely turn our ideas about using animal organs for transplant in human body. For 15 years, the field of transplantation organs of pigs was under study, but we managed to achieve what’s desired, ”says Harvard scientist George Church Together with a team of other researchers, Church showed practical example of the possibility of transplanting animal organs into as a complete alternative for humans, after removal potentially dangerous individual sections of DNA in gene cells, which can be life threatening. According to scientists, among them and the well-known PERV retroviruses that are able to take root in the genome of animals for thousands and millions of years. Similar pathogens do not pose a threat to the life of a pig, but when transplanted into a human organism they can infect healthy cells and lead to their destruction. Opening the latest genome editing system CRISPR / Cas9 solved this problem. As claimed researchers, using the editor you can remove or replace almost 100% arbitrary short sections of animal DNA code or plants, without causing any harm to the full the functioning of other genes and segments of the genome.
When applying these methods, a team of researchers led by George Church managed to remove all 62 modifications of the PERV virus from the genome of the animal, due to which the cells became a thousand times less “shares” these pathogens with the human body after they transplantation, which was impossible to achieve before. Exactly this makes pig organs more secure and safe for both the immune system, and for the body as a whole.
It is possible that in the near future, scientists will likewise will be able to clean other pathogenic elements, and not only from pig genomes, but also from other animals, which will allow for active use them for transplantation into the human body.
According to Church, the efforts of his team have already been made several embryos with deleted PERV viruses. In the future will be Other experiments in this area have been carried out.
Soon, scientists will conduct another study and try to take the last step – they will use the genomic editor CRISPR to remove the most important genes that are still not allow the transplanted organs to normally take root in the human body. According to a Harvard geneticist, samples embryonic organs will appear in his personal laboratory in 2016 year.
However, some critics do not support such experiments, fearing that when changing the DNA code of human embryos when using the CRISPR / Cas9 genomic editor you may encounter with a problem like baby design. This will cause an unborn baby can be raised with infected DNA cells or unhealthy vital signs.
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