Cellectis’ Post

  🧬 What if a simple DNA shape could redefine how we edit stem cells? 🧬   For years, most gene insertion in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) relied on viral vectors. Effective, but suboptimal, as it affects HSPCs engraftment and maintenance gene insertion events in vivo.   That’s why our teams explored non-viral alternatives.   The work we publish today in Nature Communications highlights the potential of circular single-stranded DNA (CssDNA) as a new kind of DNA donor template for gene insertion.   The results are encouraging: ✅ CssDNA reached 3–5× higher knock-in efficiency than linear ssDNA, in many cases above 40% ✅ It enabled insertions at multiple loci in HSPCs ✅ CssDNA-edited cells showed a stronger ability to engraft and maintain gene edits in vivo than viral vectors-edited cells   Beyond the numbers, this research suggests a broader shift. If we can reliably perform non-viral insertion of larger sequences, we open the door to new types of cell and gene therapies, ones that are more versatile, programmable, and durable.   How do you see non-viral gene editing evolving over the next five years?   Link to the scientific article in the first comment.