The time in which we live is opening opportunities so far just suspected even in fiction. Advances in genomics and new health technologies are creating new techniques with “huge” potential applications. Last example of this is the creation of Synthetic DNA fragments from artificial intelligence that have personalized criteria such as activating a gene in the stem cells that will make them red blood cells and not platelets.
This is the result of more than five years of research from a team of the Genomic Regulation Center (CRG) published in the magazine ‘Cell’. The authors, unlike the studies carried out so far, analyzed healthy cells because it is more representative of human biology. A work that allowed them to “discover subtle mechanisms that shape our immune system and the production of blood cells.”
This new technique provides new ways to instruct a cell and guide the way they develop
Generative biology, the combination of AI models with innovative scientific advances that allow automating the process of developing new biomolecules, has allowed in recent times to discover New recombinant proteins And for many experts it is called to transform the design of drugs with proteins or antibodies aimed at multiple targets. But also to change the form of Treat pathologies from artificial DNA.
DNA potentiators
This is the commitment that a CRG team has made taking into account a key process of biology: the role of potentiators. These small DNA fragments are located near the gene that controls and contains instruction to activate or deactivate said gene. So far the information of these potentiars had worked in carcinogenic cell lines, but never in healthy cells.
After many studies and thanks to AI, capable of translating a 250 -letters DNA sequence to an understandable phrase for humans, researchers managed to learn “enough to create new phrases with meaning in that language, that is, new potentiars that work as planned, ”he celebrates in Consalud.es Lars Velten, Researcher at the Genomic Regulation Center.
-This new technique provides new ways to instructions a cell and guide the way they develop and behave with an “unprecedented” precision, The authors of the investigation collect. Its ability to modify gene expressions from DNA potentiars open doors to new treatments against genetic diseases, in addition to enhancing existing gene therapies.
Used with gene therapies, this technique allows “more specific treatments with less side effects”
In Velten’s words, “the new DNA created by AI works as A switch to control gene expression. For example, in the context of gene therapy, if you want to administer a therapeutic gene to some cells but not others, our AI can create switches that do exactly that. ”AI can help design ultra -elelective potentiators that nature has not yet invented. Custom made enhancers may have exactly the power/off patterns required in specific types of cells.
The researchers inserted these DNA fragments made of the cells to know how they worked. Most increase or decrease gene activity, but others turn on and turn off the action. “The data of the experiments were crucial to establish the principles of design of the automatic learning model,” the research collects. “Once the model had enough measurements on how each synthetic enhancer changed gene activity in real cells, he could Predict new designs that produced ignition or off results, even if these potentiators had never existed in nature, ”he adds.
From this pilot project to know how this technology works, research will begin on a larger scale. “Our work was done in cultured mouse blood cells, but we trust that it would also work in cultivated human blood cells,” explains Velten. Even so, he acknowledges that there is still a long process even if only used to improve existing gene therapies, which “can make them more specific and reduce side effects, avoiding the expression of therapeutic genes in wrong cells.”
*Consalud’s contents are prepared by health specialized journalists and endorsed by a top -level expert committee. However, we recommend that the reader any doubt related to health is consulted with a healthcare professional.
