Cambridge, UK, 07 July 2020: Horizon Discovery Group plc (LSE: HZD) (“Horizon”, “the Company” or “the Group”), a global leader in the application of gene editing and gene modulation for cell line engineering, today announced the introduction of its stably expressing Cas9 and dCas9-VPR cell lines to help accelerate gene knockout and gene activation experiments, respectively. The cell lines are optimized to work alongside Horizon’s Edit-R predesigned synthetic single guide RNA (sgRNA) and CRISPRa guide RNA, offering researchers a complete solution to simplify and streamline CRISPR gene editing and modulation workflows.

Horizon’s Cas9 and dCas9-VPR stable cell lines were generated using its Edit-R Lentiviral particles with a blasticidin resistance cassette and are provided in pooled format. The cell lines are QC verified and validated to ensure stable expression and functionality of Cas9 or dCas9-VPR endonuclease in a range of common cell backgrounds. Both cell lines are available in the same background to enable loss- and gain-of-function studies to be performed in parallel, without the need to engineer a cell line specifically for this purpose. Removing the time-intensive step of generating a stable cell line and the cost associated with purchasing a nuclease could help researchers increase R&D productivity and allow novice users gain a better understanding of the CRISPR workflow.

Travis Hardcastle, Product Manager, Horizon Discovery, said: “These stable Cas9 cell lines demonstrate our commitment to making gene editing more accessible and provide the added benefit of decreasing the demand on researchers time, expediting basic research to the target identification and validation phase of the drug discovery pipeline.

Horizon is currently one of the only suppliers to offer a stable dCas9-VPR cell line for CRISPR activation and gain-of-function studies as well as the whole gene editing solution including a stable cell line, guide RNA and transfection reagent, allowing researchers to obtain the cells and reagents for both CRISPR knockout and activation studies from the same source.”

To introduce the range, Horizon is offering a launch bundle which will include one stable cell line background with a set of three predesigned synthetic sgRNAs and choice of DharmaFECT transfection reagent.

For further information on Horizon’s Cas9 and dCas9-VPR stable cell lines, please visit: https://horizondiscovery.com/en/navigation/gene-editing/cell-models/Cas9-stable-cell-lines

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