Non-viral Delivery of Zinc Finger Nuclease mRNA Enables Highly Efficient In Vivo Genome Editing of Multiple Therapeutic Gene Targets

• Published in: Molecular therapy Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 866 - 877
• Main Authors: Conway, Anthony, Mendel, Matthew, Kim, Kenneth, McGovern, Kyle, Boyko, Alisa, Zhang, Lei, Miller, Jeffrey C., DeKelver, Russell C., Paschon, David E., Mui, Barbara L., Lin, Paulo J.C., Tam, Ying K., Barbosa, Chris, Redelmeier, Tom, Holmes, Michael C., Lee, Gary
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 10.04.2019; Elsevier Limited; American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy
• Subjects: Animals; Bioinformatics; Cells, Cultured; Chromatography; Cloning; CRISPR; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Dependovirus - genetics; DNA; Drug Delivery Systems - methods; Enzymes; Female; Gene Editing - methods; Gene expression; Gene Knockout Techniques; Genetic Vectors; Genome editing; Genomes; Hepatocytes - metabolism; Introns - genetics; Lipids; Lipids - chemistry; Liver; Male; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Nanoparticles; Nanoparticles - administration & dosage; Nuclease; Original; Prealbumin - genetics; Proprotein Convertase 9 - genetics; Proteins; RNA, Messenger - administration & dosage; RNA, Messenger - genetics; Studies; Transgenes - genetics; Veins & arteries; Zinc Finger Nucleases - administration & dosage; Zinc Finger Nucleases - pharmacology; Zinc finger proteins
• ISSN: 1525-0016; 1525-0024
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2019.03.003

It has previously been shown that engineered zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) can be packaged into adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and delivered intravenously into mice, non-human primates, and most recently, humans to induce highly efficient therapeutic genome editing in the liver. Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are synthetic delivery vehicles that enable repeat administration and are not limited by the presence of preexisting neutralizing antibodies in patients. Here, we show that mRNA encoding ZFNs formulated into LNP can enable >90% knockout of gene expression in mice by targeting the TTR or PCSK9 gene, at mRNA doses 10-fold lower than has ever been reported. Additionally, co-delivering mRNA-LNP containing ZFNs targeted to intron 1 of the ALB locus with AAV packaged with a promoterless human IDS or FIX therapeutic transgene can result in high levels of targeted integration and subsequent therapeutically relevant levels of protein expression in mice. Finally, we show repeat administration of ZFN mRNA-LNP after a single AAV donor dose results in significantly increased levels of genome editing and transgene expression compared to a single dose. These results demonstrate LNP-mediated ZFN mRNA delivery can drive highly efficient levels of in vivo genome editing and can potentially offer a new treatment modality for a variety of diseases. Conway and colleagues demonstrate for the first time non-viral in vivo genome editing using zinc finger nucleases, achieving therapeutically relevant levels of targeted gene knockout as well as targeted integration of therapeutic transgenes within murine liver at mRNA doses 10-fold lower than has ever been reported.