© РИА Томск. Яна Кузьминых
TOMSK, Aug 14 – RIA Tomsk. Tomsk
scientists develop methods of editing of genome thanks to which it will be
possible to create technologies of treatment of the patients having a Down
syndrome and other hereditary diseases, deputy director on scientific work of
Scientific Research Institute of Medical Genetics of the Tomsk National
Research Medical Center Igor Lebedev told.
According to
him, pairs of chromosomes in humans in the standard form look
"linear", but in some cases they can "lose" their endings
and become locked in a ring. Hereditary syndromes associated with the
appearance of the ring chromosome were well studied. The results of the
research can be used to develop a new method for correcting an inherited
defect.
"The matter
is that ring chromosomes are unstable structures in stem cells and can easily
be lost at cellular division therefore the remained normal chromosome can frame
the duplicate and by that to restore a normal set of chromosomes", –
Lebedev told.
© Мария Гончарова
He specified
that change of number or structure of chromosomes leads to chromosomal
diseases, including mental retardation and Down syndrome, which arises owing to
emergence superfluous – the 21st – chromosomes. Scientists of Scientific
Research Institute of Medical Genetics with assistance of the Russian Science
Foundation make now experiments on creation of the control system for behavior
of the ring chromosome.
"We find
out whether it is possible to create such system which will purposefully create
a ring chromosome from a chromosome with structural or numerical violation, to
throw it out from a cell, and to double the remained normal copy. Thus the
chromosomal mutation will disappear from a cell", – the interlocutor of
the agency told.
He specified
that such researches are conducted with use of cultures of stem cells from
patients with ring chromosomes so far, but further editing of chromosomes will
become possible also at an embryo stage within the procedures of artificial
insemination.