Identification of genetic modifiers of Huntington's disease somatic CAG repeat instability by in vivo CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing

Abstract

Huntingtons disease (HD), one of >50 inherited repeat expansion disorders (Depienne and Mandel, 2021), is a dominantly-inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by a CAG expansion in HTT (The Huntingtons Disease Collaborative Research Group, 1993). Inherited CAG repeat length is the primary determinant of age of onset, with human genetic studies underscoring that the property driving disease is the CAG length-dependent propensity of the repeat to further expand in brain (Swami et al., 2009; GeM-HD, 2015; Hensman Moss et al., 2017; Ciosi et al., 2019; GeM-HD, 2019; Hong et al., 2021). Routes to slowing somatic CAG expansion therefore hold great promise for disease-modifying therapies. Several DNA repair genes, notably in the mismatch repair (MMR) pathway, modify somatic expansion in HD mouse models (Wheeler and Dion, 2021). To identify novel modifiers of somatic expansion, we have used CRISPR-Cas9 editing in HD knock-in mice to enable in vivo screening of expansion-modifier candidates at scale. This has included testing of HD onset modifier genes emerging from human genome-wide association studies (GWAS), as well as interactions between modifier genes, thereby providing new insight into pathways underlying CAG expansion and potential therapeutic targets.