scholarly journals Target-AID-Mediated Multiplex Base Editing in Porcine Fibroblasts

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3570
Author(s):  
Soo-Young Yum ◽  
Goo Jang ◽  
Okjae Koo

Multiplex genome editing may induce genotoxicity and chromosomal rearrangements due to double-strand DNA breaks at multiple loci simultaneously induced by programmable nucleases, including CRISPR/Cas9. However, recently developed base-editing systems can directly substitute target sequences without double-strand breaks. Thus, the base-editing system is expected to be a safer method for multiplex genome-editing platforms for livestock. Target-AID is a base editing system composed of PmCDA1, a cytidine deaminase from sea lampreys, fused to Cas9 nickase. It can be used to substitute cytosine for thymine in 3–5 base editing windows 18 bases upstream of the protospacer-adjacent motif site. In the current study, we demonstrated Target-AID-mediated base editing in porcine cells for the first time. We targeted multiple loci in the porcine genome using the Target-AID system and successfully induced target-specific base substitutions with up to 63.15% efficiency. This system can be used for the further production of various genome-engineered pigs.

Author(s):  
Soo-Young Yum ◽  
Goo Jang ◽  
Okjae Koo

Multiplex genome editing may induce genotoxicity and chromosomal rearrangements due to double-strand DNA breaks at multiple loci simultaneously induced by programmable nucleases, including CRISPR/Cas9. However, recently developed base-editing systems can directly substitute target sequences without double-strand breaks. Thus, the base-editing system is expected to be a safer method for multiplex genome-editing platforms for livestock. Target-AID is a base editing system composed of PmCDA1, a cytidine deaminase from sea lampreys, fused to Cas9 nickase. It can be used to substitute cytosine for thymine in 3-5 base editing windows, 18 bases upstream of the protospacer-adjacent motif site. In the current study, we demonstrated Target-AID-mediated base editing in porcine cells for the first time. We targeted multiple loci in the porcine genome using the Target-AID system and successfully induced target-specific base substitutions with up to 63.15% efficiency. This system can be used for the further production of various genome-engineered pigs.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandeep Chakraborty

‘Prime-editing’ proposes to replace traditional programmable nucleases (CRISPR-Cas9) using a catalytically impaired Cas9 (dCas9) connected to a engineered reverse transcriptase, and a guide RNA encoding both the target site and the desired change. With just a ‘nick’ on one strand, it is hypothe- sized, the negative, uncontrollable effects arising from double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs) - translocations, complex proteins, integrations and p53 activation - will be eliminated. However, sequencing data pro- vided (Accid:PRJNA565979) reveal plasmid integration, indicating that DSBs occur. Also, looking at only 16 off-targets is inadequate to assert that Prime-editing is more precise. Integration of plasmid occurs in all three versions (PE1/2/3). Interestingly, dCas9 which is known to be toxic in E. coli and yeast, is shown to have residual endonuclease activity. This also affects studies that use dCas9, like base- editors and de/methylations systems. Previous work using hRad51–Cas9 nickases also show significant integration in on-targets, as well as off-target integration [1]. Thus, we show that cellular response to nicking involves DSBs, and subsequent plasmid/Cas9 integration. This is an unacceptable outcome for any in vivo application in human therapy.


mBio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiwei Hu ◽  
Yannan Wang ◽  
Qian Liu ◽  
Yan Qiu ◽  
Zhiyu Zhong ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Base editing is a powerful genome editing approach that enables single-nucleotide changes without double-stranded DNA breaks (DSBs). However, off-target effects as well as other undesired editings at on-target sites remain obstacles for its application. Here, we report that bubble hairpin single guide RNAs (BH-sgRNAs), which contain a hairpin structure with a bubble region on the 5′ end of the guide sequence, can be efficiently applied to both cytosine base editor (CBE) and adenine base editor (ABE) and significantly decrease off-target editing without sacrificing on-target editing efficiency. Meanwhile, such a design also improves the purity of C-to-T conversions induced by base editor 3 (BE3) at on-target sites. Our results present a distinctive and effective strategy to improve the specificity of base editing. IMPORTANCE Base editors are DSB-free genome editing tools and have been widely used in diverse living systems. However, it is reported that these tools can cause substantial off-target editings. To meet this challenge, we developed a new approach to improve the specificity of base editors by using hairpin sgRNAs with a bubble. Furthermore, our sgRNA design also dramatically reduced indels and unwanted base substitutions at on-target sites. We believe that the BH-sgRNA design is a significant improvement over existing sgRNAs of base editors, and our design promises to be adaptable to various base editors. We expect that it will make contributions to improving the safety of gene therapy.


Author(s):  
Rogayeh Nouri ◽  
Alka Hasani ◽  
Kourosh Masnadi Shirazi ◽  
Mohammad Reza Aliand ◽  
Bita Sepehri ◽  
...  

: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the deadliest cancers in the world. Specific strains of intestinal Escherichia coli (E. coli) may influence the initiation and development of CRC by exploiting virulence factors and inflammatory pathways. Mucosa-associated E. coli strains are more prevalent in CRC biopsies in comparison to healthy controls. Moreover, these strains can survive and replicate within macrophages and induce a pro-inflammatory response. Chronic exposure to inflammatory mediators can lead to increased cell proliferation and cancer. Production of colobactin toxin by the majority of mucosa-associated E. coli isolated from CRC patients is another notable finding. Colibactin-producing E. coli strains, in particular, induce double-strand DNA breaks, stop the cell cycle, involve in chromosomal rearrangements of mammalian cells and are implicated in carcinogenic effects in animal models. Moreover, some enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) strains are able to survive and replicate in colon cells as chronic intracellular pathogens and may promote susceptibility to CRC by downregulation of DNA Mismatch Repair (MMR) proteins. In this review, we discuss current evidence and focus on the mechanisms by which E. coli can influence the development of CRC.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Veillet ◽  
Laura Chauvin ◽  
Marie-Paule Kermarrec ◽  
François Sevestre ◽  
Mathilde Merrer ◽  
...  

AbstractGenome editing has recently become a method of choice for basic research and functional genomics, and holds great potential for molecular plant breeding applications. The powerful CRISPR-Cas9 system that typically produces double-strand DNA breaks is mainly used to generate knockout mutants. Recently, the development of base editors has broadened the scope of genome editing, allowing precise and efficient nucleotide substitutions. In this study, we produced mutants in two cultivated elite cultivars of the tetraploid potato (Solanum tuberosum) using stable or transient expression of the CRISPR-Cas9 components to knockout the amylose-producing StGBSSI gene. We set up a rapid, highly sensitive and cost-effective screening strategy based on high-resolution melting analysis followed by direct Sanger sequencing and trace chromatogram analysis. Most mutations consisted of small indels, but unwanted insertions of plasmid DNA were also observed. We successfully created tetra-allelic mutants with impaired amylose biosynthesis, confirming the loss-of-function of the StGBSSI protein. The second main objective of this work was to demonstrate the proof of concept of CRISPR-Cas9 base editing in the tetraploid potato by targeting two loci encoding catalytic motifs of the StGBSSI enzyme. Using a cytidine base editor (CBE), we efficiently and precisely induced DNA substitutions in the KTGGL-encoding locus, leading to discrete variation in the amino acid sequence and generating a loss-of-function allele. The successful application of base editing in the tetraploid potato opens up new avenues for genome engineering in this species.Key MessageThe StGBSSI gene was successfully and precisely edited in the tetraploid potato using gene and base editing strategies, leading to plants with impaired amylose biosynthesis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giedrius Gasiunas ◽  
Joshua K. Young ◽  
Tautvydas Karvelis ◽  
Darius Kazlauskas ◽  
Tomas Urbaitis ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTCRISPR-Cas9 nucleases are abundant in microbes. To explore this largely uncharacterized diversity, we applied cell-free biochemical screens to rapidly assess the protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) and guide RNA (gRNA) requirements of novel Cas9 proteins. This approach permitted the characterization of 79 Cas9 orthologs with at least 7 distinct classes of gRNAs and 50 different PAM sequence requirements. PAM recognition spanned the entire spectrum of T-, A-, C-, and G-rich nucleotides ranging from simple di-nucleotide recognition to complex sequence strings longer than 4. Computational analyses indicated that most of this diversity came from 4 groups of interrelated sequences providing new insight into Cas9 evolution and efforts to engineer PAM recognition. A subset of Cas9 orthologs were purified and their activities examined further exposing additional biochemical diversity. This constituted both narrow and broad ranges of temperature dependence, staggered-end DNA target cleavage, and a requirement for longer stretches of homology between gRNA and DNA target to function robustly. In all, the diverse collection of Cas9 orthologs presented here sheds light on Cas9 evolution and provides a rich source of PAM recognition and other potentially desirable properties that may be mined to expand the genome editing toolbox with new RNA-programmable nucleases.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksia Barka ◽  
Kiara N. Berríos ◽  
Peter Bailer ◽  
Emily K. Schutsky ◽  
Tong Wang ◽  
...  

Human APOBEC3A (A3A) is a nucleic acid-modifying enzyme that belongs to the cytidine deaminase family. Canonically, A3A catalyzes the deamination of cytosine into uracil in single-stranded DNA, an activity that makes A3A both a critical antiviral defense factor and a useful tool for targeted genome editing. However, off-target mutagenesis by A3A has been readily detected in both cellular DNA and RNA, which has been shown to promote oncogenesis. Given the importance of substrate discrimination for the physiological, pathological, and biotechnological activities of A3A, here we explore the mechanistic basis for its preferential targeting of DNA over RNA. Using a chimeric substrate containing a target ribocytidine within an otherwise DNA backbone, we demonstrate that a single hydroxyl at the sugar of the target base acts as a major selectivity determinant for deamination. To assess the contribution of bases neighboring the target cytosine, we show that overall RNA deamination is greatly reduced relative to that of DNA, but can be observed when ideal features are present, such as preferred sequence context and secondary structure. A strong dependence on idealized substrate features can also be observed with a mutant of A3A (eA3A, N57G) which has been employed for genome editing due to altered selectivity for DNA over RNA. Altogether, our work reveals a relationship between the overall decreased reactivity of A3A and increased substrate selectivity, and our results hold implications both for characterizing off-target mutagenesis and for engineering optimized DNA deaminases for base-editing technologies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55.e8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Clarke ◽  
Robert Heler ◽  
Matthew S. MacDougall ◽  
Nan Cher Yeo ◽  
Alejandro Chavez ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 6457
Author(s):  
Ho Joung Lee ◽  
Hyun Ju Kim ◽  
Sang Jun Lee

The CRISPR/Cas9 system has recently emerged as a useful gene-specific editing tool. However, this approach occasionally results in the digestion of both the DNA target and similar DNA sequences due to mismatch tolerance, which remains a significant drawback of current genome editing technologies. However, our study determined that even single-base mismatches between the target DNA and 5′-truncated sgRNAs inhibited target recognition. These results suggest that a 5′-truncated sgRNA/Cas9 complex could be used to negatively select single-base-edited targets in microbial genomes. Moreover, we demonstrated that the 5′-truncated sgRNA method can be used for simple and effective single-base editing, as it enables the modification of individual bases in the DNA target, near and far from the 5′ end of truncated sgRNAs. Further, 5′-truncated sgRNAs also allowed for efficient single-base editing when using an engineered Cas9 nuclease with an expanded protospacer adjacent motif (PAM; 5′-NG), which may enable whole-genome single-base editing.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew B. Begemann ◽  
Benjamin N. Gray ◽  
Emma January ◽  
Anna Singer ◽  
Dylan C. Kesler ◽  
...  

CRISPR-based genome editing is an enabling technology with potential to dramatically transform multiple industries. Identification of additional editing tools will be imperative for broad adoption and application of this technology. A novel Type V, Class 2 CRISPR nuclease system was identified from Microgenomates and Smithella bacterial species (CRISPR from Microgenomates and Smithella, Cms1). This system was shown to efficiently generate indel mutations in the major crop plant rice (Oryza sativa). Cms1 are distinct from other Type V nucleases, are smaller than most other CRISPR nucleases, do not require a tracrRNA, and have an AT-rich protospacer-adjacent motif site requirement. A total of four novel Cms1 nucleases across multiple bacterial species were shown to be functional in a eukaryotic system. This is a major expansion of the Type V CRISPR effector protein toolbox and increases the diversity of options available to researchers.


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