Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Italy; Department of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Piedmont Amedeo Avogadro, Novara, Italy.
Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Italy.
Biochim Biophys Acta Gene Regul Mech. 2019 Jun;1862(6):619-624. doi: 10.1016/j.bbagrm.2019.04.002. Epub 2019 Apr 18.
Engineered transcription factors (TF) have expanded our ability to modulate gene expression and hold great promise as bio-therapeutics. The first-generation TF, based on Zinc Fingers or Transcription-Activator-like Effectors (TALE), required complex and time-consuming assembly protocols, and were indeed replaced in recent years by the CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) technology. Here, with coagulation F7/F8 gene promoters as models, we exploited a CRISPRa system based on deactivated (d)Cas9, fused with a transcriptional activator (VPR), which is driven to its target by a single guide (sg)RNA. Reporter gene assays in hepatoma cells identified a sgRNA (sgRNA) triggering a 35-fold increase in the activity of F7 promoter, either wild-type, or defective due to the c.-61T>G mutation. The effect was higher (15-fold) than that of an engineered TALE-TF (TF4) targeting the same promoter region. Noticeably, when challenged on the endogenous F7 gene, the dCas9-VPR/sgRNA combination was more efficient (6.5-fold) in promoting factor VII (FVII) protein secretion/activity than TF4 (3.8-fold). The approach was translated to the promoter of F8, whose reduced expression causes hemophilia A. Reporter gene assays in hepatic and endothelial cells identified sgRNAs that, respectively, appreciably increased F8 promoter activity (sgRNA, 8-fold and 3-fold; sgRNA, ~19-fold and 2-fold) with synergistic effects (38-fold and 2.7-fold). Since modest increases in F7/F8 expression would ameliorate patients' phenotype, the CRISPRa-mediated transactivation extent might approach the low therapeutic threshold. Through this pioneer study we demonstrated that the CRISPRa system is easily tailorable to increase expression, or rescue disease-causing mutations, of different promoters, with potential intriguing implications for human disease models.
基因工程转录因子 (TF) 扩展了我们调节基因表达的能力,并有望成为生物治疗药物。第一代 TF 基于锌指或转录激活因子样效应物 (TALE),需要复杂且耗时的组装方案,近年来确实已被 CRISPR 激活 (CRISPRa) 技术所取代。在这里,我们利用基于失活 (d)Cas9 的 CRISPRa 系统,融合转录激活剂 (VPR),该系统由单个向导 (sg)RNA 驱动到其靶标,以凝血因子 F7/F8 基因启动子作为模型。肝癌细胞中的报告基因检测鉴定出一种 sgRNA (sgRNA),可使野生型或因 c.-61T>G 突变而失活的 F7 启动子的活性增加约 35 倍。该效果高于针对相同启动子区域的工程化 TALE-TF (TF4) (15 倍)。值得注意的是,当在 F7 内源基因上受到挑战时,dCas9-VPR/sgRNA 组合在促进因子 VII (FVII) 蛋白分泌/活性方面比 TF4 (3.8 倍)更有效 (6.5 倍)。该方法已转化为 F8 启动子,其表达减少会导致血友病 A。在肝和内皮细胞中的报告基因检测鉴定出 sgRNAs,它们分别显著增加 F8 启动子活性 (sgRNA,8 倍和 3 倍;sgRNA,19 倍和 2 倍),具有协同作用 (38 倍和 2.7 倍)。由于 F7/F8 表达的适度增加将改善患者的表型,因此 CRISPRa 介导的转录激活程度可能接近低治疗阈值。通过这项先驱性研究,我们证明了 CRISPRa 系统易于定制以增加不同启动子的表达,或挽救致病突变,这可能对人类疾病模型具有潜在的吸引力。