Scientists are using Crispr to snip out problematic DNA in order to treat disease. But there are some instances in which it might be better to leave a gene intact and fine-tune it instead. Enter epigenetic editing.
—the small, almond-shaped part of the brain that controls fear and pleasure responses. In both rodents and in people, they found that exposure to alcohol early in life seems to decrease the expression of a gene called. This gene is a major regulator of plasticity, or the brain’s ability to adapt based on experience. When’s expression is turned down, the change is associated with a predisposition to anxiety and alcohol use disorder in adulthood.
“We didn't see any indication of their drinking coming back to baseline, so we think that maybe this epigenetic editing will produce a long-lasting effect,” Pandey says. “I think a lot more work needs to be done in terms of how this can be translated into humans for a therapy, but I have high hopes.”gene was truly responsible for this outcome, the researchers also designed a Crispr injection meant toits expression. They tested it in rats that weren’t exposed to alcohol in adolescence.
That said, Urnov, who is also the co-founder of Tune Therapeutics, an epigenetic editing company, could see an experimental therapy like this being tested among people with alcohol addiction who have relapsed from treatment several times and have no other therapeutic options left. Another complicating factor is that the expression of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of genes are altered by alcohol use over time. In people, it may not be as simple as turning up the expression ofof those genes, manipulating the expression of many at once could cause problems. “Knowing that behaviors, including alcohol use behaviors, are regulated by a number of genes, it's really a challenging problem to solve,” Ferguson says.
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