What is it about?
Chromosomes — the structures inside cells that carry our DNA — can be rearranged or broken in ways that cause cancer and inherited diseases. To study these events, scientists need tools that can deliberately rearrange chromosomes inside living animals. Until now, most methods required viruses to deliver the gene-editing machinery, which is expensive, technically demanding, and raises safety concerns. In this study, we introduced CRISPR gene-editing tools directly into the cells lining the mouse uterus using a technique called electroporation — a brief electric pulse that opens tiny pores in cell membranes to let the editing machinery enter. No virus was needed. Using this approach, we successfully created specific chromosomal rearrangements (translocations) at multiple locations in the genome, and demonstrated that cells can repair a very large chromosomal inversion spanning 57.8 million DNA base pairs. The editing events were confirmed at the single-nucleotide level using advanced DNA sequencing.
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Why is it important?
This work provides researchers with a simpler, safer, and more affordable way to engineer chromosomes in living animals. By removing the need for viral vectors, the method lowers barriers to adoption in standard laboratories. The uterine epithelium is a renewable, accessible tissue that tolerates the procedure well, making it an attractive target for somatic genome editing studies. The ability to precisely induce and assess large-scale chromosomal changes in vivo opens new avenues for modelling chromosomal disorders, understanding DNA repair mechanisms, and ultimately developing therapeutic strategies for conditions driven by chromosomal instability.
Perspectives
This project grew out of our long-standing interest in how chromosomes break and reassemble. We were struck by how much the field had been held back by the practical difficulties of viral delivery, and we wanted to test whether electroporation — which we had used successfully in fertilised embryos — could work equally well in somatic tissue. Seeing clear PCR bands and confirmed junctions from uterine samples was genuinely exciting. We hope this method empowers more groups to explore chromosomal biology in vivo without the overhead of viral production facilities.
Satoru Iwata
Chubu University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Non-viral in vivo electroporation-based chromosomal engineering and repair assessment in the murine uterine epithelium, PLOS One, May 2026, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0348797.
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