Investigation of preferential DNA repair mechanisms in K562 cells as a result of targeted genome engineering

Abstract

The performed research examines the response of K562 cells to targeted introduction of double strand DNA breaks. The research provides a comparison of repair via non-homologous end joining and homology directed repair at an endogenous loci. For the experiments, a number of DNA modification techniques were utilized: transcription activator like effector nucleases, zinc finger nucleases and clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats. Findings showed that when given a donor template for repair, all gene modification methods showed repair by both HDR and NHEJ, however the rates were not always robust. Highest rates of gene modification were observed in paired CRISPR nickases. The study highlights the need for better understanding of gene repair strategies at endogenous loci.