Enhanced genome editing efficiency of CRISPR PLUS: Cas9 chimeric fusion proteins

Abstract

Efforts to improve CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing systems for lower off-target effects are mostly at the cost of its robust on-target efficiency. To enhance both accuracy and efficiency, we created chimeric SpyCas9 proteins fused with the 5′-to-3′ exonuclease Recombination J (RecJ) or with GFP and demonstrated that transfection of the pre-assembled ribonucleoprotein of the two chimeric proteins into human or plant cells resulted in greater targeted mutagenesis efficiency up to 600% without noticeable increase in off-target effects. Improved activity of the two fusion proteins should enable editing of the previously hard-to-edit genes and thus readily obtaining the cells with designer traits.