Science writer, Jocelyn Kaiser, reports in Science that a new analysis shows that not accounting for ancestry differences slightly skewed an investigation into the discovery of novel cancer genes, causing it to miss genes that are important drug targets in people of recent African descent.
To edit a human gene, scientists first design a short strand of RNA to match part of the gene's DNA sequence, known as guide RNA. This guide RNA then directs where CRISPR makes the desired genome edit. However, if the guide RNA doesn't closely match the sequence of the part of the genome being edited, CRISPR may not edit the genome as intended.
The guide RNAs are usually based on a reference genome compiled from just a few people's DNA that doesn't fully capture human diversity.
The analysis 'shows a clear example of this [ancestry] problem,' computational biologist Dr Luca Pinello from the Massachusetts General Hospital said.
