On-target risk and horizontal gene transfer in genome editing

Abstract

When genome editing is performed in mouse fertilized eggs to induce DSB, insertion of unintended sequence, such as retrotransposons, endogenous genes, and vectors, occurs in approximately 10% of DSB sites (on target). The generation of fusion genes of these unintended sequences and endogenous genes can be a new risk event for clinical applications using genome editing (on-target risk). We also showed that exosome-mediated horizontal gene transfer occurs in DSB repair during genome editing, and is the driving force behind mammalian genome evolution.