REVIEW article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Cell and Gene Therapy
Expanding the CRISPR/Cas Toolkit: Applications in Proteomics and Theranostics
Provisionally accepted
- Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, India
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Conventional methods available for genome editing have proven non-specific, labour-intensive, and time-consuming. In this context, CRISPR/Cas technology represents a significant breakthrough. It is derived from a sophisticated microbial defence system consisting of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPR, and the RNA-guided DNA endonuclease Cas. Beyond its original role in genome editing, CRISPR continues to play a major role in the field of proteomics, functional genomics, and molecular therapy. Animal models, including mice, Drosophila, zebrafish, etc. have substantially benefited from CRISPR in uncovering protein function through reverse genetics approaches, including knock-in, knockout, CRISPRi, and indel mutation strategies. On the clinical front, CRISPR gene therapy has also seen successes, including applications in sickle cell disease, hypercholesterolemia, and cancer immunotherapy. However, notable challenges remain, including in vivo packaging and delivery efficiency, toxicity, and genomic off-target effects. Ongoing efforts to overcome these include the development of novel delivery formulations (e.g., nanoparticles, exosomes), artificial intelligence-guided experimental design, and miniaturization of Cas proteins. This review focuses on CRISPR/Cas gene editing mechanisms and explores its state-of-the-art applications in the field of proteomics and theranostics.
Keywords: CRISPR-Cas system, Genome-engineering, Proteomics, protein-protein interaction, Protein-Chromatin Interaction, theranostics
Received: 26 Sep 2025; Accepted: 11 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Punde, Dey, Bhattacharjee and Patra. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chinmoy Patra, cpatra@aripune.org
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