Biology subjects

Park, Y.-H.

Publications and source records attributed to Park, Y.-H..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Understanding the heterogeneity of alloreactive natural killer cell function inkidney transplantation

Human Natural Killer (NK) cells are heterogeneous lymphocytes regulated by variegated arrays of germline-encoded activating and inhibitory receptors. They acquire the ability to detect polymorphic self-antigen via NKG2A/HLA-E or KIR/HLA-I ligand interactions through an education process. Correlations among HLA/KIR genes, kidney transplantation pathology and outcomes suggest that NK cells participate in allograft injury, but mechanisms linking NK HLA/KIR education to antibody-independent pathological functions remain unclear. We used CyTOF to characterize pre- and post-transplant peripheral blood NK cell phenotypes/functions before and after stimulation with allogeneic donor cells. Unsupervised clustering identified unique NK cell subpopulations present in varying proportions across patients, each of which responded heterogeneously to donor cells based on donor ligand expression patterns. Analyses of pre-transplant blood showed that educated, NKG2A/KIR-expressing NK cells responded greater than non-educated subsets to donor stimulators, and this heightened alloreactivity persisted > 6 months post-transplant despite immunosuppression. In distinct test and validation sets of patients participating in two clinical trials, pre-transplant donor-induced release of NK cell Ksp37, a cytotoxicity mediator, correlated with 2-year and 5-year eGFR. The findings explain previously reported associations between NK cell genotypes and transplant outcomes and suggest that pre-transplant NK cell analysis could function as a risk-assessment biomarker for transplant outcomes.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2021

Expansion of the prime editing modality with Cas9 from Francisella novicida

Prime editing can induce a desired base substitution, insertion, or deletion in a target gene using reverse transcriptase (RT) after nick formation by CRISPR nickase. In this study, we developed a technology that can be used to insert or replace external bases in the target DNA sequence by linking reverse transcriptase to the Francisella novicida Cas 9 [FnCas9(H969A)] nickase module, which is a CRISPR-Cas9 ortholog. Using FnCas9(H969A) nickase, the targeting limitation of existing Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9 nickase [SpCas9(H840A)]-based prime editing was dramatically extended, and accurate prime editing was induced specifically for the target genes.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2020

Enhancement of Target Specificity of CRISPR-Cas12a by Using a Chimeric DNA-RNA Guide

The CRISPR-Cas9 system is widely used for target-specific genome engineering. Cpf1 is one of the CRISPR effectors that controls target genes by recognizing thymine-rich protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) sequences. Cpf1 has a higher sensitivity to mismatches in the guide RNA than does Cas9; therefore, off-target sequence recognition and cleavage are lower. However, it tolerates mismatches in regions distant from the PAM sequence (TTTN or TTN) in the protospacer, and off-target cleavage issues may become more problematic when Cpf1 activity is improved for therapeutic purposes. In our study, we investigated off-target cleavage by Cpf1 and modified the Cpf1 (cr)RNA to address the off-target cleavage issue. We developed a CRISPR-Cpf1 that can induce mutations in target DNA sequences in a highly specific and effective manner by partially substituting the (cr)RNA with DNA to change the energy potential of base pairing to the target DNA. A model to explain how chimeric (cr)RNA guided CRISPR-Cpf1 and SpCas9 nickase effectively work in the intracellular genome is suggested. In our results, CRISPR-Cpf1 induces less off-target mutations at the cell level, when chimeric DNA-RNA guide was used for genome editing. This study has a potential for therapeutic applications in incurable diseases caused by genetic mutation.

biochemistry↗

bioRxiv2019

Prediction-based highly sensitive CRISPR off-target validation using target-specific DNA enrichment

CRISPR effectors, which comprise a CRISPR-Cas protein and a guide (g)RNA derived from the bacterial immune system, are widely used to induce double-strand breaks in target DNA and activate the in-vivo DNA repair system for target-specific genome editing. When the gRNA recognizes genomic loci with sequences that are similar to the target, deleterious and often carcinogenic mutations can occur. Off-target mutations with a frequency below 0.5% remain mostly undetected by current genome-wide off-target detection techniques. In this study, we developed a method to effectively detect extremely small amounts of mutated DNA based on predicted off-target-specific amplification. We used various genome editors, including CRISPR-Cpf1, Cas9, and an adenine base editor, to induce intracellular genome mutations. The CRISPR amplification method detected off-target mutations at a significantly higher rate (1.6[~]984 fold increase) than did an existing targeted amplicon sequencing method. In the near future, CRISPR amplification in combination with genome-wide off-target detection methods will allow to detect genome editor-induced off-target mutations with high sensitivity and in a non-biased manner.

molecular biology↗