Controlling CRISPR-Cas9 with ligand-activated and ligand-deactivated sgRNAs
Published in Nature Communications, 2019
Recommended citation: Kundert K, Lucas JE, Watters KE, Fellmann C, Ng AH, Heineike BM, Fitzsimmons CM, Oakes BL, Qu J, Prasad N, Rosenberg OS, Savage DF, El-Samad H, Doudna JA, Kortemme T. Controlling CRISPR-Cas9 with ligand-activated and ligand-deactivated sgRNAs. Nat Commun. 2019 May 9;10(1):2127. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09985-2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09985-2
The CRISPR-Cas9 system provides the ability to edit, repress, activate, or mark any gene (or DNA element) by pairing of a programmable single guide RNA (sgRNA) with a complementary sequence on the DNA target. Here we present a new method for small-molecule control of CRISPR-Cas9 function through insertion of RNA aptamers into the sgRNA. We show that CRISPR-Cas9-based gene repression (CRISPRi) can be either activated or deactivated in a dose-dependent fashion over a >10-fold dynamic range in response to two different small-molecule ligands. Since our system acts directly on each target-specific sgRNA, it enables new applications that require differential and opposing temporal control of multiple genes.