Strong and tunable anti-CRISPR/Cas activities in plants

[EN] CRISPR/Cas has revolutionized genome engineering in plants. However, the use of anti-CRISPR proteins as tools to prevent CRISPR/Cas-mediated gene editing and gene activation in plants has not been explored yet. This study describes the characterization of two anti-CRISPR proteins, AcrIIA4 and A...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Calvache-Román, Camilo Alberto, Selma, Sara, Vázquez-Vilar, Marta, Uranga, Mireia, Fernandez Del Carmen, Maria Asuncion|||0000-0002-9202-4960, Daròs, José-Antonio|||0000-0002-6535-2889, Orzáez Calatayud, Diego Vicente
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/195085
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/195085
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Anti-CRISPR
Cas9
Cas12a
AcrIIA4
AcrVA1
Gene expression regulation
Nicotiana benthamiana
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] CRISPR/Cas has revolutionized genome engineering in plants. However, the use of anti-CRISPR proteins as tools to prevent CRISPR/Cas-mediated gene editing and gene activation in plants has not been explored yet. This study describes the characterization of two anti-CRISPR proteins, AcrIIA4 and AcrVA1, in Nicotiana benthamiana. Our results demonstrate that AcrIIA4 prevents site-directed mutagenesis in leaves when transiently co-expressed with CRISPR/Cas9. In a similar way, AcrVA1 is able to prevent CRISPR/Cas12a-mediated gene editing. Moreover, using a N. benthamiana line constitutively expressing Cas9, we show that the viral delivery of AcrIIA4 using Tobacco etch virus is able to completely abolish the high editing levels obtained when the guide RNA is delivered with a virus, in this case Potato virus X. We also show that AcrIIA4 and AcrVA1 repress CRISPR/dCas-based transcriptional activation of reporter genes. In the case of AcrIIA4, this repression occurs in a highly efficient, dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, the fusion of an auxin degron to AcrIIA4 results in auxin-regulated activation of a downstream reporter gene. The strong anti-Cas activity of AcrIIA4 and AcrVA1 reported here opens new possibilities for customized control of gene editing and gene expression in plants.