Research Team Led by Prof. Lee Sang-Hyuk at Department of Life Science Publishes Findings in Nucleic Acids Research
- 작성처
- Date2020.11.16
- 9615
The research team led by Professor Lee Sang-Hyuk from the Department of Life Science in the Ewha College of Natural Sciences developed the world's largest CRISPR screening database and published its research findings in the top-rated international academic journal Nucleic Acids Research (impact factor of 11.501, top 4 percent) on Monday, November 2. The research is expected to enable the development of innovative treatments and new drugs based on the iCSDB, an integrated database of screening data based on characteristics of human cells and CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors. The study was conducted by Dr. Choi Ah Young, a member of Professor Lee Sang-Hyuk's research team, as the lead author in a joint study with the Korean Bioinformation Center (co-corresponding author Lee Byung-wook).
CRISPR-Cas9, which is being referred to as third-generation genetic scissors, is a gene-editing technology that can selectively remove or edit specific genes through the high-precision manipulation of the DNA of various living organisms. Compared to previous technologies, CRISPR-Cas9 has the advantage of allowing easier and more accurate editing of specific genes, which is introducing a revolutionary impact on the advancement of life science and medicine. In addition, a library-based screening technique that applies CRISPR-Cas technology to all human genes is currently seeing widespread usage in discovering targets for new drug development and conducting various molecular science research.
The iCSDB, developed by the Ewha research team, is an integrated database that combines DepMap Portal that includes three large-scale CRISPR screening projects and BioGRID ORCS that provides CRISPR screening sources for genes. Through the iCSDB, 1,375 pieces of CRISPR screening data were collected for 976 human cell lines including CRISPR gene editing results for up to 70 cancer types, thereby constituting the world’s largest data collection of its kind. On top of that, the research team established a user-friendly web environment to allow users to easily access information on any cell line they are interested in, and implemented various means including infographics to promote easy understanding of the effects of gene editing, all of which are expected to offer significant help to researchers in related fields around the world.
Professor Lee remarked, "We expect the iCSDB developed in our research to help identify the causes of treatment resistance for various carcinomas and subsequently the development of new treatments that can overcome treatment resistance. In the future, we plan to develop innovative new drug targets or new treatments through drug screening and integrated analysis of transcriptome data for the same cell lines."