Recent Progress and Future Prospect of CRISPR/Cas-Derived Transcription Activation (CRISPRa) System in Plants
Xiao Ding,
Lu Yu,
Luo Chen,
Yujie Li,
Jinlun Zhang,
Hanyan Sheng,
Zhengwei Ren,
Yunlong Li,
Xiaohan Yu,
Shuangxia Jin,
Jinglin Cao
Affiliations
Xiao Ding
Institute of Cotton, Shanxi Agricultural University, Yuncheng 044000, China
Lu Yu
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Luo Chen
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Yujie Li
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Jinlun Zhang
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Hanyan Sheng
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Zhengwei Ren
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Yunlong Li
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Xiaohan Yu
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Shuangxia Jin
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Jinglin Cao
Tobacco Research Institute of Hubei Province, Wuhan 430030, China
Genome editing technology has become one of the hottest research areas in recent years. Among diverse genome editing tools, the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated proteins system (CRISPR/Cas system) has exhibited the obvious advantages of specificity, simplicity, and flexibility over any previous genome editing system. In addition, the emergence of Cas9 mutants, such as dCas9 (dead Cas9), which lost its endonuclease activity but maintains DNA recognition activity with the guide RNA, provides powerful genetic manipulation tools. In particular, combining the dCas9 protein and transcriptional activator to achieve specific regulation of gene expression has made important contributions to biotechnology in medical research as well as agriculture. CRISPR/dCas9 activation (CRISPRa) can increase the transcription of endogenous genes. Overexpression of foreign genes by traditional transgenic technology in plant cells is the routine method to verify gene function by elevating genes transcription. One of the main limitations of the overexpression is the vector capacity constraint that makes it difficult to express multiple genes using the typical Ti plasmid vectors from Agrobacterium. The CRISPRa system can overcome these limitations of the traditional gene overexpression method and achieve multiple gene activation by simply designating several guide RNAs in one vector. This review summarizes the latest progress based on the development of CRISPRa systems, including SunTag, dCas9-VPR, dCas9-TV, scRNA, SAM, and CRISPR-Act and their applications in plants. Furthermore, limitations, challenges of current CRISPRa systems and future prospective applications are also discussed.
