CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Genome Editing of Epigenetic Factors for Cancer Therapy

Advances in engineered recombinant nuclease have provided facile and reliable methods for genome editing. Especially with the development of the CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)/Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein-9 nuclease) system, the discovery of various versions of Cas9 proteins and delivery carriers, it is now practicable to introduce desired mutations into the genome, to correct disease-related mutations, and to activate or suppress genes of interest. Epigenetic regulators are often disturbed in cancer cells and are essential for the transformation of normal to cancerous cells. Tumor-related epigenetic alterations or epigenetic factor mutations play a major part during the various steps of carcinogenesis and affect a variety of cancer-related genes and a wide range of cancerous phenotypes. Therefore, epigenetic regulatory enzymes might be candidate targets for cancer therapy. In this review, we discuss prospects of CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing in targeting epigenetics for cancer gene therapy.