Application of CRISPR/Cas9 in Breast Cancer Treatment: A Mini Review

Document Type : Review paper

Authors

1 Pediatric Department, University Hospital "Mother Teresa", Tirana, Albania

2 Management Committee Member, Global Research, Education, and Event Network (GREEN)

Abstract

Breast cancer is the commonest cause of cancer death in women worldwide. Although impressive gains in breast cancer research and treatment have been made over the past decades, breast cancer treatment still remains a significant global challenge. Recently, application of gene editing tools, such as the CRISPR/Cas9 system, has shown a clinical potential to discover novel targets for cancer therapy. CRISPR is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms. Cas9 is an enzyme that uses CRISPR sequences as a guide to recognize and cleave specific strands of DNA that are complementary to the CRISPR sequence. Cas9 enzymes together with CRISPR sequences form the basis of a technology known as CRISPR/Cas9 that is a genome editing tool used to edit parts of the genome. CRISPR/Cas9 could be a major step forward to cancer management by providing patients with an effective method for dealing with cancers by dissecting the carcinogenesis pathways, identifying new biologic targets, and perhaps arming cancer cells 
with drugs. Moreover, CRISPR/Cas9 can be employed to rapidly engineer immune cells for cancer immunotherapeutic applications. The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been reported to play an important role in preventing drug resistance in breast cancer. It has also been used to develop early breast cancer diagnostic tools and treatments. Despite the potential of CRISPR/Cas9 in breast cancer treatment, some challenges remain to be solved for clinical application of this system in breast cancer treatment. This review aims to present the application of CRISPR/Cas9 in breast cancer 
treatment.

Keywords


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Volume 1, Issue 3
(Special Issue: papers selected from ICLS22, Istanbul, Turkey)
Pages 104-113
  • Receive Date: 10 September 2022
  • Revise Date: 15 September 2022
  • Accept Date: 05 October 2022