Project description:Chromosomal rearrangements including large DNA-fragment inversions, deletions, and duplications by Cas9 with paired sgRNAs are important to investigate structural genome variations and developmental gene regulation, but little is known about the underlying mechanism. Here we report that disrupting CtIP or FANCD2, which is thought to function in NHEJ, enhances precise DNA-fragment deletion. In addition, by analyzing the inserted nucleotides at the junctions of DNA-fragment deletions, inversions, duplications, and characterizing the cleaved products, we find that Cas9 endonucleolytically cleaves the noncomplementary strand with a flexible scissile profile upstream of -3 position of the PAM site in vivo and in vitro, generating overhanged DSB ends. Moreover, we find that engineered Cas9 nucleases have distinct cleavage profiles. Finally, Cas9-mediated nucleotide insertions are nonrandom and are equal to the combined sequences upstream of both PAM sites with predicted frequencies. Thus, precise and predictable DNA-fragment editing could be achieved by perturbing DNA repair genes and using appropriate PAM configurations. These findings have important implications regarding 3D chromatin folding and enhancer insulation during gene regulation.
Project description:Ensuring genome safety during gene editing is crucial for clinical translation of the high-efficient CRISPR-Cas9 toolbox. Therefore, the undesired events including chromosomal translocations, vector integrations, and large deletions arising during therapeutic gene editing remain to be adequately addressed or tackled in vivo. Here, we apply CRISPR-Cas9TX in comparison to CRISPR-Cas9 to target Vegfa for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) disease in a mouse model. AAV delivery of both CRISPR-Cas9 and CRISPR-Cas9TX can efficiently inhibit laser-induced neovascularization. Importantly, Cas9TX almost eliminates chromosomal translocations that occur at a frequency of approximately 1% in Cas9-edited mouse retinal cells. Strikingly, the widely observed AAV integration at the target Vegfa site is also greatly dropped from nearly 50% of edited events to the background level during Cas9TX editing. Our findings reveal that chromosomal structural variations routinely occur during in vivo genome editing and highlight Cas9TX as a superior form of Cas9 for in vivo gene disruption.
Project description:A validation experiment performed on HEK293 cell lines after genome editing. The design contains three duplicate runs consisted of: HEK293 wild type cell line HEK293 with MIR484 gene knockdown using CRISPR-Cas9 HEK293 with MIR185 gene knockout using CRISPR-Cas9
Project description:CRISPR-Cas9 delivery by AAV holds promise for gene therapy but faces critical barriers due to its potential immunogenicity and limited payload capacity. Here, we demonstrate genome engineering in postnatal mice using AAV-split-Cas9, a multi-functional platform customizable for genome-editing, transcriptional regulation, and other previously impracticable AAV-CRISPR-Cas9 applications. We identify crucial parameters that impact efficacy and clinical translation of our platform, including viral biodistribution, editing efficiencies in various organs, antigenicity, immunological reactions, and physiological outcomes. These results reveal that AAV-CRISPR-Cas9 evokes host responses with distinct cellular and molecular signatures, but unlike alternative delivery methods, does not induce detectable cellular damage in vivo. Our study provides a foundation for developing effective genome therapeutics mRNA-Seq from muscles (9 samples; 3 mice x 3 conditions) and lymph nodes (9 samples; 3 mice x 3 conditions).
Project description:Adoptive transfer of T cells expressing a transgenic T cell receptor (TCR) has the potential to revolutionize immunotherapy of infectious diseases and cancer. However, the generation of defined TCR-transgenic T cell medicinal products with predictable in vivo function still poses a major challenge and limits broader and more successful application of this ‘living drug’. Here, by studying 51 different TCRs, we show that conventional genetic engineering by viral transduction leads to variable TCR expression and functionality as a result of variable transgene copy numbers and untargeted transgene integration. In contrast, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated TCR replacement enables defined, targeted TCR transgene insertion into the TCR gene locus. Thereby, T cell products display more homogenous TCR expression similar to physiological T cells. Importantly, increased T cell product homogeneity after targeted TCR gene editing correlates with predictable in vivo T cell responses, which represents a crucial aspect for clinical application in adoptive T cell immunotherapy.
Project description:We generated a SNORD71 KO chondrocyte cell pool using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. A CRISPR control cell line was generated and used as a control. Levels of 2’-O-methylation of human rRNAs in SNORD71 KO cell pool and CRISPR control cells were evaluated by RiboMethSeq.