CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Editing: A Brief Scientometric Insight on Scientific Production and Knowledge Structure

The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-associated protein 9 (CRISPR-Cas9) is a promising molecular tool that has revolutionised genome editing and was recognised with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020. This study assesses the scientific productivity and knowledge structure in the scientific domain of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing up to 2022. A total of 12,799 publications were retrieved from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database within the Web of Science (WoS), employing related keyword searches. The records were published by authors from 107 countries in 1,731 journals. Of the total scientific publications, 499,895 total citations were found, with 39.06 average citations per publication. The United States of America dominated the research and is currently the global leader in this area with the most publications and prolific top institutions. Visualisation analysis for mapping research trends based on co-occurrences of keywords was done using VOSviewer revealing six clusters of research themes comprising; 1) conception and fundamental development; 2) gene therapy and drug delivery; 3) cancer biology; 4) plant biotechnology; 5) livestock breeding, and; 6) synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. Nanoparticle-based delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 is gaining academic attention, while CRISPR-Cas9 application in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering has progressed recently and becoming the current research interest.

Keywords: Cas9 protein, CRISPR, Genetic engineering, SCIE, VOSviewer.