February 15th, 2025

Engineering of human cells reveals genome's resilience to structural changes

Research reveals human genomes exhibit resilience to structural changes, with essential genes necessary for cell survival. The study enhances understanding of structural variants' roles in health and disease.

Read original articleLink Icon
Engineering of human cells reveals genome's resilience to structural changes

research into the implications of structural variations in human health and disease. The study involved creating thousands of structural variants in human cell lines and analyzing their effects on cell survival. It was found that while deletions of essential genes led to cell death, large-scale deletions that spared essential genes allowed for cell survival. This research indicates a surprising flexibility in human genomes, suggesting that structural changes, including those affecting gene positions, may not significantly impact gene expression. The collaborative efforts of researchers from various institutions have resulted in a significant advancement in the ability to study structural variations, which could lead to improved understanding and classification of genetic variants associated with diseases.

- Human genomes show unexpected resilience to structural changes.

- CRISPR prime editing was used to create thousands of structural variants in cell lines.

- Essential genes must remain intact for cell survival amid structural changes.

- Non-coding DNA may be largely dispensable, warranting further research.

- The study enhances understanding of structural variants' roles in diseases.

Link Icon 3 comments
By @tomxor - about 1 month
Not a biochemist... But, isn't there a problem with test coverage here? "cells in a dish" is not a full organism which requires cell differentiation, where more specific genes are expressed?

Isn't some genetic code also conditional and expressed under different external pressures? Kind of like how you can delete or break (within syntactically correct changes) huge portions of code in the Linux kernel and still have it build and run fine locally.. because they are featured you don't happen to be using right now or are device drivers for hardware you are not currently running.

By @rolisz - about 1 month
Reminds me of Michael Levin's work, where they found that planaria look the same regardless of how you screw around with their genetic material.
By @MarlonPro - about 1 month
If you are like me who read The Code Breaker you come here and read this article and say "I get it". Raise your hand!