Enhancing CRISPR/Cas systems with nanotechnology

CRISPR/Cas systems have revolutionized biology and medicine, and have led to new paradigms in disease diagnostics and therapeutics. However, these complexes suffer from key limitations regarding barriers to cellular entry, stability in biological environments, and off-target effects. Integrating nanotechnology with CRISPR/Cas systems has emerged as a promising strategy to overcome these challenges and has further unlocked structures that accumulate preferentially in tissues of interest, have tunable pharmacological properties, and are activated in response to desired stimuli. Nanomaterials can also enhance CRISPR/Cas-mediated detection platforms by enabling faster, more sensitive, and convenient readouts. We highlight recent advances in this rapidly growing field. We also outline areas that need further development to fully realize the potential of CRISPR technologies. CRISPR/Cas systems have revolutionized biology and medicine owing to their ability to cleave target nucleic acids with high precision and programmability; however, there are key challenges to their effective use – insufficient cellular entry, degradation in biological media, and off-target effects.The integration of CRISPR with nanotechnology has emerged as a promising strategy to overcome current barriers and impart new and tailorable properties.Nanotechnology can enhance CRISPR-mediated gene editing by enabling intracellular and targeted delivery, improved stability, stimulus-responsive activation in tissues of interest, and tunable pharmacological properties.Nanotechnology can also enhance CRISPR-mediated detection by increasing sensitivity, facilitating simpler readouts for point-of-care use, and reducing time to readout.