A cell cycle-dependent CRISPR-Cas9 activation system based on an anti-CRISPR protein shows improved genome editing accuracy

Abstract

The development of genome editing systems based on the Cas9 endonuclease has greatly facilitated gene knockouts and targeted genetic alterations. Precise editing of target genes without off-target effects is crucial to prevent adverse effects in clinical applications. Although several methods have been reported to result in less off-target effects associated with the CRISPR technology, these often exhibit lower editing efficiency. Therefore, efficient, accurate, and innocuous CRISPR technology is still required. Anti-CRISPR proteins are natural inhibitors of CRISPR-Cas systems derived from bacteriophages. Here, the anti-CRISPR protein, AcrIIA4, was fused with the N terminal region of human Cdt1 that is degraded specifically in S and G₂, the phases of the cell cycle when homology-directed repair (HDR) is dominant. Co-expression of SpyCas9 and AcrIIA4-Cdt1 not only increases the frequency of HDR but also suppress off-targets effects. Thus, the combination of SpyCas9 and AcrIIA4-Cdt1 is a cell cycle-dependent Cas9 activation system for accurate and efficient genome editing.

To enhance the accuracy of CRISPR-Cas9 editing, Matsumoto et al have fused the anti-CRISPR protein AcrIIA4 with Cdt1, a protein that is degraded in S and G₂, the phases of the cell cycle where homology-directed repair (HDR) dominates. This leads to an increase in HDR and in on-target editing, illustrating the feasibility of the approach.