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American researchers have performed the very first ‘surgery’ on the human genome, in a development that could one day provide a cure for those suffering from genetic diseases.
It wasn’t surgery in the conventional sense – the genome is present in every cell in the body, so large scalpels and saws are no use. But the way the gene was manipulated bears a resemblance to traditional surgical techniques.
Scientists have manipulated genes before, but only in one dimension. Now, scientists have discovered a way to change how the genes are arranged in cells, manipulating them in three dimensions, allowing them to alter DNA patterns on specific places on a chromosone.
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The results of the study were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, and they explain that the genome is folded in different ways, in order for it to fit inside the cell.
There is a DNA sequence that signals when a long string of DNA should fold and turn back on itself – Erez Lierberman Aiden, director of the Centre for Genome Architecture at Baylor College of Medicine, describes it as similar to origami.
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