Gene Editing Tools in the Laboratory: CRISPR-Cas9 and Its Applications in Glioblastoma Research

Glioblastoma is a highly aggressive and devastating type of brain tumor, recognized as the most prevalent and malignant amongst the primary brain tumors. Characterized by rapid growth, extensive invasiveness, and resistance to conventional therapies, glioblastoma presents significant challenges in clinical treatment. It has a high mortality rate, with most patients surviving for a short period of time after the diagnosis. Current treatments, which include surgical resection, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, offer limited efficacy due to the tumor's location in the brain and its highly invasive nature. There is no current cure for glioblastoma. However, in recent years, gene-editing technologies have shown great promise for better understanding and treating genetic disorders, including cancers. Among these, CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) systems have demonstrated particular promise due to their precision, efficiency, and versatility in targeting specific genetic sequences. This review paper will examine various gene editing tools (ZFNs, TALEN, and CRISPR), with an emphasis on CRISPR-Cas systems, for experimental and clinical uses for treating glioblastoma.