The correction of disease-causing mutations in human embryos could reduce the burden of inherited genetic disorders in the fetus and newborn, and improve the efficiency of fertility treatments for couples with disease-causing mutations in lieu of embryo selection. Here we evaluate the repair outcomes of a Cas9-induced double-strand break (DSB) introduced on the paternal chromosome at the EYS locus, which carries a frame-shift mutation causing blindness.We show that the most common repair outcome is microhomology-mediated end joining, which occurs during the first cell cycle in the zygote, leading to embryos with non-mosaic restoration of the reading frame. However, about half of the breaks remain unrepaired, resulting in an undetectable paternal allele and, upon entry into mitosis, loss of one or both chromosomal arms. Thus, Cas9 allows for the modification of chromosomal content in human embryos in a targeted manner, which may be useful for the prevention of trisomies.

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Highlights d Generation of human androgenetic and parthenogenetic ESCs (aESCs and pESCs) d Comparing aESCs and pESCs identifies known and formerly undescribed imprinted genes d The uniparental cells show tissue-specific parent-of-origin differentiation biases d The imprinted gene IGF2 is involved in hepatic differentiation bias of human aESCs

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