2. Academic Validation
  3. Receptor-Mediated Delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 Endonuclease for Cell-Type-Specific Gene Editing

Receptor-Mediated Delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 Endonuclease for Cell-Type-Specific Gene Editing

  • J Am Chem Soc. 2018 May 30;140(21):6596-6603. doi: 10.1021/jacs.8b01551.
Romain Rouet,  Benjamin A Thuma 1,  Marc D Roy 2,  Nathanael G Lintner 3,  David M Rubitski 2,  James E Finley 2,  Hanna M Wisniewska 1,  Rima Mendonsa,  Ariana Hirsh,  Lorena de Oñate,  Joan Compte Barrón,  Thomas J McLellan 1,  Justin Bellenger 1,  Xidong Feng 1,  Alison Varghese 1,  Boris A Chrunyk 1,  Kris Borzilleri 1,  Kevin D Hesp 1,  Kaihong Zhou,  Nannan Ma,  Meihua Tu 3,  Robert Dullea 4,  Kim F McClure 3,  Ross C Wilson,  Spiros Liras 3,  Vincent Mascitti 1,  Jennifer A Doudna 5
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Pfizer Medicine Design , Groton , Connecticut 06340 , United States.
  • 2 Pfizer Drug Safety R&D , Groton , Connecticut 06340 , United States.
  • 3 Pfizer Medicine Design , Cambridge , Massachusetts 02139 , United States.
  • 4 Pfizer CVMET Biology , Cambridge , Massachusetts 02139 , United States.
  • 5 MBIB Division , Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , Berkeley , California 94720 , United States.
PMID: 29668265 DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b01551
Abstract

CRISPR-Cas RNA-guided endonucleases hold great promise for disrupting or correcting genomic sequences through site-specific DNA cleavage and repair. However, the lack of methods for cell- and tissue-selective delivery currently limits both research and clinical uses of these Enzymes. We report the design and in vitro evaluation of S. pyogenes Cas9 proteins harboring asialoglycoprotein receptor ligands (ASGPrL). In particular, we demonstrate that the resulting ribonucleoproteins (Cas9-ASGPrL RNP) can be engineered to be preferentially internalized into cells expressing the corresponding receptor on their surface. Uptake of such fluorescently labeled proteins in liver-derived cell lines HEPG2 (ASGPr+) and SKHEP (control; diminished ASGPr) was studied by live cell imaging and demonstrates increased accumulation of Cas9-ASGPrL RNP in HEPG2 cells as a result of effective ASGPr-mediated endocytosis. When uptake occurred in the presence of a peptide with endosomolytic properties, we observed receptor-facilitated and cell-type specific gene editing that did not rely on electroporation or the use of transfection reagents. Overall, these in vitro results validate the receptor-mediated delivery of genome-editing Enzymes as an approach for cell-selective gene editing and provide a framework for future potential applications to hepatoselective gene editing in vivo.

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