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      Dimeric CRISPR RNA-guided FokI nucleases for highly specific genome editing

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          Abstract

          Monomeric CRISPR-Cas9 nucleases are widely used for targeted genome editing but can induce unwanted off-target mutations with high frequencies. Here we describe dimeric RNA-guided FokI Nucleases (RFNs) that recognize extended sequences and can edit endogenous genes with high efficiencies in human cells. The cleavage activity of an RFN depends strictly on the binding of two guide RNAs (gRNAs) to DNA with a defined spacing and orientation and therefore show improved specificities relative to wild-type Cas9 monomers. Importantly, direct comparisons show that RFNs guided by a single gRNA generally induce lower levels of unwanted mutations than matched monomeric Cas9 nickases. In addition, we describe a simple method for expressing multiple gRNAs bearing any 5′ end nucleotide, which gives dimeric RFNs a broad targeting range. RFNs combine the ease of RNA-based targeting with the specificity enhancement inherent to dimerization and are likely to be useful in applications that require highly precise genome editing.

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          Most cited references13

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          Efficient In Vivo Genome Editing Using RNA-Guided Nucleases

          Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated (Cas) systems have evolved in bacteria and archaea as a defense mechanism to silence foreign nucleic acids of viruses and plasmids. Recent work has shown that bacterial type II CRISPR systems can be adapted to create guide RNAs (gRNAs) capable of directing site-specific DNA cleavage by the Cas9 nuclease in vitro. Here we show that this system can function in vivo to induce targeted genetic modifications in zebrafish embryos with efficiencies comparable to those obtained using ZFNs and TALENs for the same genes. RNA-guided nucleases robustly enabled genome editing at 9 of 11 different sites tested, including two for which TALENs previously failed to induce alterations. These results demonstrate that programmable CRISPR/Cas systems provide a simple, rapid, and highly scalable method for altering genes in vivo, opening the door to using RNA-guided nucleases for genome editing in a wide range of organisms.
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            CRISPR RNA-guided activation of endogenous human genes

            Catalytically inactive CRISPR-associated 9 nuclease (dCas9) can be directed by short guide RNAs (gRNAs) to repress endogenous genes in bacteria and human cells. Here we show that a dCas9-VP64 transcriptional activation domain fusion protein can be directed by single or multiple gRNAs to increase expression of specific endogenous human genes. These results provide an important proof-of-principle that CRISPR-Cas systems can be used to target heterologous effector domains in human cells.
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              FLASH Assembly of TALENs Enables High-Throughput Genome Editing

              Engineered transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) have shown promise as facile and broadly applicable genome editing tools. However, no publicly available high-throughput method for constructing TALENs has been published and large-scale assessments of the success rate and targeting range of the technology remain lacking. Here we describe the Fast Ligation-based Automatable Solid-phase High-throughput (FLASH) platform, a rapid and cost-effective method we developed to enable large-scale assembly of TALENs. We tested 48 FLASH-assembled TALEN pairs in a human cell-based EGFP reporter system and found that all 48 possessed efficient gene modification activities. We also used FLASH to assemble TALENs for 96 endogenous human genes implicated in cancer and/or epigenetic regulation and found that 84 pairs were able to efficiently introduce targeted alterations. Our results establish the robustness of TALEN technology and demonstrate that FLASH facilitates high-throughput genome editing at a scale not currently possible with engineered zinc-finger nucleases or meganucleases.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                9604648
                20305
                Nat Biotechnol
                Nat. Biotechnol.
                Nature biotechnology
                1087-0156
                1546-1696
                5 June 2014
                25 April 2014
                June 2014
                01 December 2014
                : 32
                : 6
                : 569-576
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Molecular Pathology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts USA
                [2 ]Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts USA
                [3 ]Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts USA
                [4 ]Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts USA
                Author notes
                Correspondence should be addressed to J.K.J. ( jjoung@ 123456mgh.harvard.edu )
                Article
                NIHMS587116
                10.1038/nbt.2908
                4090141
                24770325
                b31b2611-9fcd-4a87-8417-4a0ecba3f224
                History
                Categories
                Article

                Biotechnology
                Biotechnology

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