Repurposing CRISPR system for transcriptional activation

Abstract

In recent years, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) system has become the most popular one for genome editing. When the nuclease domains of Cas9 protein are mutated into deactivated form (dCas9), CRISPR/dCas9 still retains the ability to bind the targeted DNA sequence, but loses the endonuclease cleavage activity. Taking advantage of the characteristics of this engineered nuclease inactive Cas9, the CRISPR/dCas system has been repurposed into versatile RNA-guided, DNA-targeting platforms, such as genome imaging, gene regulation, and epigenetic modification. Specifically, fusion of dCas9 with activation domains allows specific and efficient transcriptional activation on a genome-wide scale among diverse organisms. The purpose of this chapter is to review most important the recently published literature on CRISPR/dCas9-based transcriptional activation systems. Compared with the conventional approaches for enhancement of the expression of specific genes of interest, CRISPR/Cas9-based system has emerged as a promising technology for genome regulation, allowing specificity, convenience, robustness, and scalability for endogenous gene activation.