Journal: Nature Communications
Article Title: Unveiling the cut-and-repair cycle of designer nucleases in human stem and T cells via CLEAR-time dPCR
doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-65182-4
Figure Lengend Snippet: a Diagram illustrating the induced aberrations by designer nucleases and the CLEAR-time dPCR assay strategies. b Absolute copy number and linkage normalisation workflow. Data are shown as mean ± s.d. c Genome copy frequency summarisation of on-target aberrations 3 h, 3- and 14-days post-Cas9 editing with and without AAV transduction targeting the WAS locus. Data are shown as mean ± s.d. d Single cleavage restriction digestion of AAV donor template VCN and % integrated donor template measured in AAV-transduced cells 3- and 14-days post-editing. Data are shown as mean ± s.d. e End trimming was measured as absolute loss of 5’- and 3’- sequences flanking the Cas9 cleavage site 3 h, 3- and 14-days post-Cas9 editing in RNP-only edited cells. Data are shown as mean ± s.d. f Aneuploidy measured as the absolute change of p or q arm copy numbers. Data are shown as mean ± s.d. g Validation of indel frequency by comparing the relative indel frequency calculated by dPCR, T7EI assay, ICE and NGS measured in WAS edited HSPCs 3-days post-editing. Abs. and Rel. refer to absolute and relative indels (i.e., normalised or not normalised to a reference), respectively. Data for T7EI, ICE, and NGS represent n = 1, dPCR data shown as mean ± s.d. of n = 3 technical replicates. h Validation of donor-template integration by comparing digital PCR to flow cytometry of AAV-transduced cells at 3- and 14-days post-editing. Flow cytometry data represent n = 1, dPCR data shown as mean ± s.d. of n = 3 technical replicates. i Qualitative validation of large deletion and other aberrations of RNP only edited cells 3-days post-editing using CAST-seq. On top, WAS gene schematic, exons in bold. Light blue indicates aberrations on negative-strand, light red indicates aberrations on positive-strand ( n = 2 technical replicates). j NGS targeted sequencing spanning ~2500 bp of the cleavage site targeting WAS (white arrowhead) indicating small and large deletions ( > 250 bp). X-axis indicates nucleotide position; Y-axis indicates number of mapped reads. Scale bar indicates 250 bp. All data represents n = 3 technical replicates unless stated otherwise. b , c , e One-way ANOVA with Sidak’s multiple comparison test. d Two-way ANOVA with Tukey multiple comparisons test. f Two-way ANOVA with Sidak’s multiple comparison test. n.s.= no statistical significance, **** p < 0.0001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
Article Snippet: Bar charts illustrate the rate coefficients calculated through the different phases of the DNA cleavage and repair process in comparisons with previously published articles addressing the DNA repair kinetics with Sanger sequencing + amplicon deep sequencing + LM-PCR (Brinkman et al.), LM-PCR (Ben-Tov et al.), and dPCR + amplicon deep sequencing (Liu et al.) vs. CLEAR-time dPCR (this manuscript).
Techniques: Transduction, Biomarker Discovery, T7EI Assay, Digital PCR, Flow Cytometry, Sequencing, Comparison