Systems of Delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 Ribonucleoprotein Complexes for Genome Editing

Abstract

The discovery of RNA-guided nucleases have enabled to leap forward in genome editing of cells and organisms. These nucleases can be delivered into cells as plasmid DNA, mRNA or ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs). The delivery in the form of RNP has some advantages because the target gene editing begins immediately without the process of intracellular synthesis of components and CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)/Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9) system assembly. This strategy makes it possible to directly control RNP concentration and to decrease the number of off-targets due to rapid degradation of the complex in the cell. However, the task to develop RNP delivery systems remains unsolved. This review is devoted to RNP delivery into cells and tissues using physical approaches and different carriers. Special attention is paid to novel approaches that improve the RNP delivery efficiency.