CRISPRe: An innate transcriptional enhancer for endogenous genes in CRISPR-Cas immunity

Dan Li; Yihong Chen; Fei Huang; Jianmei Wang; Xufeng Li; Yi Yang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107814

CRISPRe: An innate transcriptional enhancer for endogenous genes in CRISPR-Cas immunity

iScience. 2023 Sep 1;26(10):107814. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107814. eCollection 2023 Oct 20.

Authors

Dan Li^{1

2}, Yihong Chen¹, Fei Huang¹, Jianmei Wang¹, Xufeng Li¹, Yi Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Bio-resource and Eco-environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
² School of Liquor-making Engineering, Sichuan University Jinjiang College, Meishan 620680, China.

Abstract

CRISPR-Cas system has been repurposed to the promising strategy of CRISPR-based transcriptional interference/activation (CRISPRi/CRISPRa) without eliciting DNA breaks that enables Cas complex a block for transcription initiation or elongation, which greatly expands its application fields and values. However, loss of Cas nuclease ability, especially the endogenous nuclease, may affect genome stability seriously. Here, we found a transcriptional enhancer for genes (CRISPRe) in type I-C system of industrial strain Ketogulonicigenium vulgare by maintaining the natural activity of Cas3 nuclease and introducing the specific motifs that do not trigger immunity. CRISPRe greatly improved the expression of heterologous and endogenous genes and the biosynthesis of products by facilitating transcriptional elongation. Besides, the mechanism for pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) biosynthesis regulated by coupling transcriptional-translational elongation in operon was elucidated. Hence, we enrich the toolbox for CRISPR-Cas system and provide a new framework for gene regulation at transcription.

Keywords: Immunology; Molecular biology; Molecular mechanism of gene regulation.