Dataset Information

Efficient Genome Editing in Bacillus licheniformis Mediated by a Conditional CRISPR/Cas9 System.

ABSTRACT: Bacillus licheniformis is widely used to produce multiple enzymes and chemicals in industrial fermentation. It is also an organism that is hard to genetically manipulate, which is mainly attributed to its extremely low transformation efficiency. The lack of genetic modification technology severely limits its further application. In this study, an all-in-one conditional clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/Cas9 plasmid was developed for B. licheniformis with the cas9 gene under the control of a xylose-inducible promoter. By means of this design, the expression of the cas9 gene could be repressed without xylose, which significantly improved the transformation ratio from less than 0.1 cfu/?g to 2.42 cfu/?g DNA. Compared with this conditional system, a constitutive overexpression system led to significant growth retardation in bacterial cells. Both the biomass and specific growth rate decreased greatly. After transformation, successful genome editing could be triggered by 0.5% xylose. When the ?-amylase gene amyL was used as a genomic target, the efficiencies of its disruption using three different protospacer-adjacent motif (PAM) sequences were 64.3%, 70.9%, and 47.1%, respectively. Moreover, temperature plays a pivotal role in the function of the constructed CRISPR system. The maximum success rate reached 97% at 20 °C, while higher temperatures negatively impacted the function of the system. These results suggested that the design with a cas9 gene under the strict control of a xylose-inducible promoter significantly improved the success rate of genome editing in this host. This work contributes to the development of genetic manipulation and furthers the use of B. licheniformis as an efficient industrial workhorse.

SUBMITTER: Li Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7285353 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Efficient Genome Editing in Bacillus licheniformis Mediated by a Conditional CRISPR/Cas9 System.

Li Youran Y Wang Hanrong H Zhang Liang L Ding Zhongyang Z Xu Sha S Gu Zhenghua Z Shi Guiyang G

Microorganisms 20200517 5

Bacillus licheniformis is widely used to produce multiple enzymes and chemicals in industrial fermentation. It is also an organism that is hard to genetically manipulate, which is mainly attributed to its extremely low transformation efficiency. The lack of genetic modification technology severely limits its further application. In this study, an all-in-one conditional clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/Cas9 plasmid was developed for B. licheniformis ...[more]

PMID: 32429599

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Project description:Bacillus strains are important industrial bacteria that can produce various biochemical products. However, low transformation efficiencies and a lack of effective genome editing tools have hindered its widespread application. Recently, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas9 techniques have been utilized in many organisms as genome editing tools because of their high efficiency and easy manipulation. In this study, an efficient genome editing method was developed for Bacillus licheniformis using a CRISPR-Cas9 nickase integrated into the genome of B. licheniformis DW2 with overexpression driven by the P43 promoter. The yvmC gene was deleted using the CRISPR-Cas9n technique with homology arms of 1.0 kb as a representative example, and an efficiency of 100% was achieved. In addition, two genes were simultaneously disrupted with an efficiency of 11.6%, and the large DNA fragment bacABC (42.7 kb) was deleted with an efficiency of 79.0%. Furthermore, the heterologous reporter gene aprN, which codes for nattokinase in Bacillus subtilis, was inserted into the chromosome of B. licheniformis with an efficiency of 76.5%. The activity of nattokinase in the DWc9nΔ7/pP43SNT-SsacC strain reached 59.7 fibrinolytic units (FU)/ml, which was 25.7% higher than that of DWc9n/pP43SNT-SsacC Finally, the engineered strain DWc9nΔ7 (Δepr ΔwprA Δmpr ΔaprE Δvpr ΔbprA ΔbacABC), with multiple disrupted genes, was constructed using the CRISPR-Cas9n technique. Taken together, we have developed an efficient genome editing tool based on CRISPR-Cas9n in B. licheniformis This tool could be applied to strain improvement for future research.IMPORTANCE As important industrial bacteria, Bacillus strains have attracted significant attention due to their production of biological products. However, genetic manipulation of these bacteria is difficult. The CRISPR-Cas9 system has been applied to genome editing in some bacteria, and CRISPR-Cas9n was proven to be an efficient and precise tool in previous reports. The significance of our research is the development of an efficient, more precise, and systematic genome editing method for single-gene deletion, multiple-gene disruption, large DNA fragment deletion, and single-gene integration in Bacillus licheniformis via Cas9 nickase. We also applied this method to the genetic engineering of the host strain for protein expression.

Project description:Malaria parasites are unicellular organisms residing inside the red blood cells, and current methods for editing the parasite genes have been inefficient. The CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and Cas9 endonuclease-mediated genome editing) system is a new powerful technique for genome editing and has been widely employed to study gene function in various organisms. However, whether this technique can be applied to modify the genomes of malaria parasites has not been determined. In this paper, we demonstrated that Cas9 is able to introduce site-specific DNA double-strand breaks in the Plasmodium yoelii genome that can be repaired through homologous recombination. By supplying engineered homologous repair templates, we generated targeted deletion, reporter knock-in, and nucleotide replacement in multiple parasite genes, achieving up to 100% efficiency in gene deletion and 22 to 45% efficiencies in knock-in and allelic replacement. Our results establish methodologies for introducing desired modifications in the P. yoelii genome with high efficiency and accuracy, which will greatly improve our ability to study gene function of malaria parasites. Importance: Malaria, caused by infection of Plasmodium parasites, remains a world-wide public health burden. Although the genomes of many malaria parasites have been sequenced, we still do not know the functions of approximately half of the genes in the genomes. Studying gene function has become the focus of many studies; however, editing genes in malaria parasite genomes is still inefficient. Here we designed several efficient approaches, based on the CRISPR/Cas9 system, to introduce site-specific DNA double-strand breaks in the Plasmodium yoelii genome that can be repaired through homologous recombination. Using this system, we achieved high efficiencies in gene deletion, reporter tagging, and allelic replacement in multiple parasite genes. This technique for editing the malaria parasite genome will greatly facilitate our ability to elucidate gene function.

Dataset Information

Efficient Genome Editing in Bacillus licheniformis Mediated by a Conditional CRISPR/Cas9 System.

Publications

Efficient Genome Editing in <i>Bacillus licheniformis</i> Mediated by a Conditional CRISPR/Cas9 System.

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