The effects of length and sequence of gRNA on Cas13b and Cas13d activity
in vitro and in vivo
Abstract
Cas13 are the only CRISPR/Cas systems found so far, which target RNA
strand while preserving chromosomal integrity. Cas13b or Cas13d cleaves
RNA by the crRNA guidance. However, the effect of the characteristics of
the spacer sequences, such as the length and sequence preference, on the
activity of Cas13b and Cas13d remains unclear. Our study shows that
neither Cas13b nor Cas13d has a particular preference for the sequence
composition of gRNA, including the sequence of crRNA and its flanking
sites on target RNA. However, the crRNA, complementary to the middle
part of the target RNA, seems to show higher cleavage efficiency for
both Cas13b and Cas13d. As for the length of crRNAs, the most
appropriate crRNA length for Cas13b is 22-25 nt and crRNA as short as 15
nt is still functional. Whereas, Cas13d requires longer crRNA, and 22-30
nt crRNA can achieve good effect. Both Cas13b and Cas13d show the
ability to process precursor crRNAs. Our study suggests that Cas13b may
have a stronger precursor processing ability than Cas13d. There are few
in vivo studies on the application of Cas13b or Cas13d in mammals. With
the methods of transgenic mice and hydrodynamic injection via tail vein,
our study showed that both of them had high knock-down efficiency
against target RNA in vivo. These results indicate that Cas13b and
Cas13d have great potential for in vivo RNA operation and disease
treatment without damaging genomic DNA.