Question

This question relates to 'prime editing':

Describe (briefly) the scientific principle behind how the technology works. This may be complex and the goal here is to not get bogged down in so much detail that this becomes incomprehensible.

Answer 1

Answer: Genome editing is a set of techniques which provides the ability to modify the DNA sequences of any organism. In this technology, the genetic material can be changed by addtion, deletion, or any other alterations at a particular site of the genome. And the basic idea of genome editing is to overcome critical issues like removing or suppressing the disease oriented mutations. Several approaches are there to edit organism's genome sequences. Prime editing is one of those gene editing techniques which acts as molecular scissors for genes and helps modification in the target genome.

Step-1 Cutting/ nick formation of single DNA strand at a specific point (target site of genome is recognized with the help of Cas9, prime editing tool which is modified to form nick only one DNA strand )

Step-2 Editing at the cut site takes place by using 'Reverse transcriptase' enzyme which is guided by RNA strand.

The whole process again repeated for the non-edited strand of the DNA and in this way prime editing gets completed on its own without depending upon the cell's repair system which is not controlable. Due to this prime editing method chances of random insertion/deletion modifications in the genome as an effect of cell's own repair system are bypassed which ultimaltely leads to more effcetive genome editing.

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