10 research outputs found
Targeted In Vivo Mutagenesis in Yeast Using CRISPR/Cas9 and Hyperactive Cytidine and Adenine Deaminases
Directed evolution is a preferred strategy to improvethe functionof proteins such as enzymes that act as bottlenecks in metabolic pathways.Common directed evolution approaches rely on error-prone PCR-basedlibraries where the number of possible variants is usually limitedby cellular transformation efficiencies. Targeted in vivo mutagenesis can advance directed evolution approaches and help toovercome limitations in library generation. In the current study,we aimed to develop a high-efficiency time-controllable targeted mutagenesistoolkit in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae by employing the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. To that end, we fused thedCas9 protein with hyperactive variants of adenine and cytidine deaminasesaiming to create an inducible CRISPR-based mutagenesis tool targetinga specific DNA sequence in vivo with extended editingwindows and high mutagenesis efficiency. We also investigated theeffect of guide RNA multiplexing on the mutagenesis efficiency bothphenotypically and on the DNA level
Does co-expression of Yarrowia lipolytica genes encoding Yas1p, Yas2p and Yas3p make a potential alkane-responsive biosensor in Saccharomyces cerevisiae?
Alkane-based biofuels are desirable to produce at a commercial scale as these have properties similar to current petroleum-derived transportation fuels. Rationally engineering microorganisms to produce a desirable compound, such as alkanes, is, however, challenging. Metabolic engineers are therefore increasingly implementing evolutionary engineering approaches combined with high-throughput screening tools, including metabolite biosensors, to identify productive cells. Engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce alkanes could be facilitated by using an alkane-responsive biosensor, which can potentially be developed from the native alkane-sensing system in Yarrowia lipolytica, a well-known alkaneassimilating yeast. This putative alkane-sensing system is, at least, based on three different transcription factors (TFs) named Yas1p, Yas2p and Yas3p. Although this system is not fully elucidated in Y. lipolytica, we were interested in evaluating the possibility of translating this system into an alkane-responsive biosensor in S. cerevisiae. We evaluated the alkanesensing system in S. cerevisiae by developing one sensor based on the native Y. lipolytica ALK1 promoter and one sensor based on the native S. cerevisiae CYC1 promoter. In both systems, we found that the TFs Yas1p, Yas2p and Yas3p do not seem to act in the same way as these have been reported to do in their native host. Additional analysis of the TFs suggests that more knowledge regarding their mechanism is needed before a potential alkane-responsive sensor based on the Y. lipolytica system can be established in S. cerevisiae. Copyright
Expansion of the Yeast Modular Cloning Toolkit for CRISPR-Based Applications, Genomic Integrations and Combinatorial Libraries
Standardisation of genetic parts has become a topic of increasing interest over the last decades. The promise of simplifying molecular cloning procedures, while at the same time making them more predictable and reproducible has led to the design of several biological standards, one of which is modular cloning (MoClo). The Yeast MoClo toolkit provides a large library of characterised genetic parts combined with a comprehensive and flexible assembly strategy. Here we aimed to (1) simplify the adoption of the standard by providing a simple design tool for including new parts in the MoClo library, (2) characterise the toolkit further by demonstrating the impact of a BglII site in promoter parts on protein expression, and (3) expand the toolkit to enable efficient construction of gRNA arrays, marker-less integration cassettes and combinatorial libraries. These additions make the toolkit more applicable for common engineering tasks and will further promote its adoption in the yeast biological engineering community
Multiplexed Guide RNA Expression Leads to Increased Mutation Frequency in Targeted Window Using a CRISPR-Guided Error-Prone DNA Polymerase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats(CRISPR)-Cas9technology, with its ability to target a specific DNA locus usingguide RNAs (gRNAs), is particularly suited for targeted mutagenesis.The targeted diversification of nucleotides in Saccharomycescerevisiae using a CRISPR-guided error-prone DNA polymerase calledyEvolvR was recently reported. Here, we investigate the effectof multiplexed expression of gRNAs flanking a short stretch of DNAon reversion and mutation frequencies using yEvolvR. Phenotypic assaysdemonstrate that higher reversion frequencies are observed when expressingmultiple gRNAs simultaneously. Next generation sequencing revealsa synergistic effect of multiple gRNAs on mutation frequencies, whichis more pronounced in a mutant with a partially defective DNA mismatchrepair system. Additionally, we characterize a galactose-inducibleyEvolvR, which enables temporal control of mutagenesis. This studydemonstrates that multiplex expression of gRNAs and induction of mutagenesisgreatly improves the capabilities of yEvolvR for generation of geneticlibraries in vivo
Model-Assisted Fine-Tuning of Central Carbon Metabolism in Yeast through dCas9-Based Regulation
Engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae for industrial-scale production of valuable chemicals involves extensive modulation of its metabolism. Here, we identified novel gene expression fine-tuning set-ups to enhance endogenous metabolic fluxes toward increasing levels of acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA. dCas9-based transcriptional regulation was combined together with a malonyl-CoA responsive intracellular biosensor to select for beneficial set-ups. The candidate genes for screening were predicted using a genome-scale metabolic model, and a gRNA library targeting a total of 168 selected genes was designed. After multiple rounds of fluorescence-activated cell sorting and library sequencing, the gRNAs that were functional and increased flux toward malonyl-CoA were assessed for their efficiency to enhance 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) production. 3-HP production was significantly improved upon fine-tuning genes involved in providing malonyl-CoA precursors, cofactor supply, as well as chromatin remodeling
Controlling gene expression with deep generative design of regulatory DNA
Design of de novo synthetic regulatory DNA is a promising avenue to control gene expression in biotechnology and medicine. Using mutagenesis typically requires screening sizable random DNA libraries, which limits the designs to span merely a short section of the promoter and restricts their control of gene expression. Here, we prototype a deep learning strategy based on generative adversarial networks (GAN) by learning directly from genomic and transcriptomic data. Our ExpressionGAN can traverse the entire regulatory sequence-expression landscape in a gene-specific manner, generating regulatory DNA with prespecified target mRNA levels spanning the whole gene regulatory structure including coding and adjacent non-coding regions. Despite high sequence divergence from natural DNA, in vivo measurements show that 57% of the highly-expressed synthetic sequences surpass the expression levels of highly-expressed natural controls. This demonstrates the applicability and relevance of deep generative design to expand our knowledge and control of gene expression regulation in any desired organism, condition or tissue
CRISPR based technologies for high-throughput metabolic engineering of yeast
The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a commonly used microorganism for metabolic engineering applications since it has a very well-studied metabolism and it can be easily genetically modified. This led to its use as a cell factory for the production of a wide variety of industrially relevant chemicals such as fuels, cosmetics and food additives. However, there is always space for improvement of the productivity metrics of the products of interest. Some of the challenges that have to be addressed are the efficient rewiring of the metabolism for improvement of the metabolic fluxes and the performance improvement of the enzymes of interest. The development of metabolite biosensors that can connect the levels of a metabolite of interest to a readable output, has allowed the use of high-throughput screening methods in yeast such as Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) to identify cells with higher metabolite levels. Moreover, the CRISPR/Cas9 technology that has emerged the last decade has not only sped up the introduction of genomic modifications for strain engineering, but it has been further developed for other purposes such as gene expression fine tuning or base editing. Those applications of CRISPR/Cas9 can be coupled to high-throughput screening methods and can give new insights into metabolic engineering challenges.This study aimed to develop various CRISPR/Cas9-based tools in yeast along with their implementation in high-throughput setups for solving metabolic engineering challenges. At the same time, a modular cloning system for CRISPR/Cas9-based tools was developed for making the molecular cloning of those tools more fast, flexible and simple to use. Hyperactive variants of cytidine and adenine deaminases were explored for the construction of broad range CRISPR base editors in yeast for in vivo mutagenesis. Also, gRNA libraries were used in two different setups: with transcriptional activator dCas9-VPR for transcription optimization and with broad range base editors for directed evolution of a gene of choice.In summary, this work explores some of the possibilities that CRISPR tools can offer when combined with gRNA libraries and at the same time it aims to contribute to the systematization of the experimental workflow for CRISPR applications in yeast
Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting as a Tool for Recombinant Strain Screening
Metabolic engineering of microbial cells is the discipline of optimizing microbial metabolism to enable and improve the production of target molecules ranging from biofuels and chemical building blocks to high-value pharmaceuticals. The advances in genetic engineering have eased the construction of highly engineered microbial strains and the generation of genetic libraries. Intracellular metabolite-responsive biosensors facilitate high-throughput screening of these libraries by connecting the levels of a metabolite of interest to a fluorescence output. Fluorescent-activated cell sorting (FACS) enables the isolation of highly fluorescent single cells and thus genotypes that produce higher levels of the metabolite of interest. Here, we describe a high-throughput screening method for recombinant yeast strain screening based on intracellular biosensors and FACS
Multiplexed CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing and Gene Regulation Using Csy4 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) technology has greatly accelerated the field of strain engineering. However, insufficient efforts have been made toward developing robust multiplexing tools in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here, we exploit the RNA processing capacity of the bacterial endoribonuclease Csy4 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to generate multiple gRNAs from a single transcript for genome editing and gene interference applications in S. cerevisiae. In regards to genome editing, we performed a quadruple deletion of FAA1, FAA4, POX1 and TES1 reaching 96% efficiency out of 24 colonies tested. Then, we used this system to efficiently transcriptionally regulate the three genes, OLE1, HMG1 and ACS1. Thus, we demonstrate that multiplexed genome editing and gene regulation can be performed in a fast and effective manner using Csy4
Multiplexed CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing and Gene Regulation Using Csy4 in <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i>
Clustered regularly interspaced short
palindromic repeats (CRISPR)
technology has greatly accelerated the field of strain engineering.
However, insufficient efforts have been made toward developing robust
multiplexing tools in <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i>. Here,
we exploit the RNA processing capacity of the bacterial endoribonuclease
Csy4 from <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>, to generate multiple
gRNAs from a single transcript for genome editing and gene interference
applications in <i>S. cerevisiae</i>. In regards to
genome editing, we performed a quadruple deletion of <i>FAA1</i>, <i>FAA4</i>, <i>POX1</i> and <i>TES1</i> reaching 96% efficiency out of 24 colonies tested. Then, we used
this system to efficiently transcriptionally regulate the three genes, <i>OLE1</i>, <i>HMG1</i> and <i>ACS1</i>. Thus,
we demonstrate that multiplexed genome editing and gene regulation
can be performed in a fast and effective manner using Csy4