Project description:Transposon-encoded tnpB and iscB genes encode RNA-guided DNA nucleases that promote their own selfish spread through targeted DNA cleavage and homologous recombination. These widespread gene families were repeatedly domesticated over evolutionary timescales, leading to the emergence of diverse CRISPR-associated nucleases including Cas9 and Cas12. We set out to test the hypothesis that TnpB nucleases may have also been repurposed for novel, unexpected functions other than CRISPR-Cas. Here, using phylogenetics, structural predictions, comparative genomics, and functional assays, we uncover multiple instances of programmable transcription factors that we name TnpB-like nuclease-dead repressors (TldR). These proteins employ naturally occurring guide RNAs to specifically target conserved promoter regions of the genome, leading to potent gene repression in a mechanism akin to CRISPRi technologies invented by humans. Focusing on a TldR clade found broadly in Enterobacteriaceae, we discover that bacteriophages exploit the combined action of TldR and an adjacently encoded phage gene to alter the expression and composition of the host flagellar assembly, a transformation with the potential to impact motility, phage susceptibility, and host immunity. Collectively, this work showcases the diverse molecular innovations that were enabled through repeated exaptation of transposon-encoded genes, and reveals the evolutionary trajectory of diverse RNA-guided transcription factors.
Project description:The type V-I CRISPR-Cas system is becoming increasingly attractive for its potential utility in gene editing. However, natural nucleases often exhibit low efficiency, limiting their application. Here, we utilized structure-guided rational design and combinatorial protein engineering to optimize an uncharacterized Cas12i nuclease, Cas12i3. Accordingly, we developed Cas-SF01, a Cas12i3 variant that exhibits significantly improved gene-editing activity in mammalian cells and plants. Cas-SF01 displays comparable or superior editing performance compared to SpCas9 or recently engineered Cas12 nucleases. Further analysis of PAM recognition showed that Cas-SF01 has an expanded PAM range and effectively recognizes NTTN and noncanonical NATN and TTVN PAMs. Additionally, we identified an amino acid substitution, D876R, that markedly reduced the off-target effect while maintaining high on-target activity, leading to the development of Cas-SF01HiFi (high-fidelity Cas-SF01). Finally, we demonstrated that Cas-SF01 has robust gene-editing activity in both the monocot plant rice and dicot plant pepper. Our results suggest that Cas-SF01 can serve as a robust gene-editing platform with high efficiency and specificity for future genome editing applications across different organisms.
Project description:Insertion sequences (IS) are compact and pervasive transposable elements found in bacteria, which encode only the genes necessary for their mobilization and maintenance. IS200/IS605 elements undergo ‘peel-and-paste’ transposition catalyzed by a TnpA transposase, but intriguingly, they also encode diverse, TnpB-family genes that are evolutionarily related to the CRISPR-associated effectors Cas9 and Cas12. Recent studies demonstrated that TnpB-family enzymes function as RNA-guided DNA endonucleases, but the broader biological role of this activity has remained enigmatic. Here we show that IscB and TnpB are essential to prevent loss of the donor IS element and potential transposon extinction as a consequence of the TnpA transposition mechanism. We first performed phylogenetic analysis of IscB/TnpB proteins and selected a family of related IS elements from Geobacillus stearothermophilus that we predicted would be mobilized by a common TnpA homolog. After reconstituting transposition using a heterologous expression system in E. coli, we found that IS elements were readily lost from the donor site due to the activity of TnpA in rejoining the flanking sequences back together upon excision. However, these IS elements also encode non-coding RNAs that guide TnpB and IscB nucleases to precisely recognize and cleave these excision products, leading either to elimination of the excision product or re-installation of the transposon through recombination. Indeed, under experimental conditions in which TnpA and TnpB-RNA complexes were co-expressed together with a genomically integrated IS element, transposon retention was significantly increased relative to conditions expressing TnpA alone. Remarkably, both TnpA and TnpB recognize the same AT-rich transposon-adjacent motif (TAM) during transposon excision and RNA-guided DNA cleavage, respectively, revealing a striking convergence in the evolution of DNA sequence specificity between transposase and nuclease. Collectively, our study reveals that RNA-guided DNA cleavage is a primal biochemical activity that arose to bias the selfish inheritance of transposable elements, which was later co-opted during the evolution of CRISPR-Cas adaptive immunity for antiviral defense.
Project description:As the ancestor of CRISPR-Cas12 nucleases, TnpB represents the most compact gene editing tool currently available. Recent studies have identified multiple TnpB systems with gene editing activity in mammalian cells, and the potential of TnpB in treating diseases has been demonstrated in animal models. However, the editing characteristics of various TnpB systems, comparable to CRISPR tools, require more extensive investigation. Using a standardized evaluation framework, we conducted a thorough analysis of the editing properties of four TnpB variants alongside representative Cas12 and Cas9 tools. Overall, TnpBs exhibit intermediate editing activity and safety profiles among all tested systems, with ISYmu1 TnpB demonstrating a good performance in both editing activity and specificity. Considering its compact size, potent editing efficiency and high specificity, ISYmu1 TnpB represents a promising candidate for in vivo gene therapy applications.
Project description:We report the PAMs of diverse type I-E CRISPR- Cas systems and the type I-C and the type I-F1 CRISPR-Cas systems from Xanthomonas albilineans. Furthermore, we report PAMs of two type I-B CRISPR transposons (CASTs) and the Vibrio cholerae type I-F CAST. For identification of the PAMs, we used a cell-free TXTL-based PAM screen we named PAM-DETECT. By adding a 5N randomized PAM library and plasmids encoding for Cascade genes and gRNAs, recognized PAMs were bound by Cascade and protected from cleavage by a restriction enzyme that has it's recognition site within the target region. By amplifying the non-cleaved target plasmid, we used next-generation sequencing to analyze the enrichment of functional PAMs of the studied CRISPR-Cas systems. We additionally assessed the insertion sites of crRNA-dependent and crRNA-independent transposition of the Rippkaea orientalis type I-B CAST in TXTL and E. coli.
Project description:CRISPR-Cas transcriptional tools have been widely applied for programmable regulation of complex biological networks. In comparison to eukaryotic systems, bacterial CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) has stringent target site requirements for effective gene activation. While genes may not always have an NGG protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) at the appropriate position, PAM-flexible dCas9 variants can expand the range of targetable sites. Here we systematically evaluate a panel of PAM-flexible dCas9 variants for their ability to activate bacterial genes. We observe that dxCas9-NG provides a high dynamic range of gene activation for sites with NGN PAMs while dSpRY permits modest activity across almost any PAM. Similar trends were observed for heterologous and endogenous promoters. For all variants tested, improved PAM-flexibility comes with the tradeoff that CRISPRi-mediated gene repression becomes less effective. Weaker CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) gene repression can be partially rescued by expressing multiple sgRNAs to target many sites in the gene of interest. Our work provides a framework to choose the most effective dCas9 variant for a given set of gene targets, which will further expand the utility of CRISPRa/i gene regulation in bacterial systems.
Project description:In this work, we analyzed recognized PAM sequences from four CRISPR-Cas systems: E. coli I-E, B. halodurans I-C, S. thermophilus CR1 II-A, and F. novicida V. Cells containing functional PAMs were sorted using FACS and subsequently sequenced. Ranking of recognized PAMs from a positive screen