Scaffold RNA engineering in type V CRISPR-Cas systems: a potent way to enhance gene expression in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
New, orthogonal transcription factors in eukaryotic cells have been realized by engineering nuclease-deficient CRISPR-associated proteins and/or their guide RNAs. In this work, we present a new kind of orthogonal activators, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, made by turning type V CRISPR RNA into a scaffold RNA (ScRNA) able to recruit a variable number of VP64 activation domains. The activator arises from the complex between the synthetic ScRNA and DNase-deficient type V Cas proteins: dCas12e and denAsCas12a. The transcription activation achieved via the newly engineered dCas:ScRNA system is up to 4.7-fold higher than that obtained with the direct fusion of VP64 to Cas proteins. The new transcription factors have been proven to be functional in circuits such as Boolean gates, converters, multiplex-gene and metabolic-pathway activation. Our results extend the CRISPR-Cas-based technology with a new effective tool that only demands RNA engineering and improves the current design of transcription factors based on type V Cas proteins. Overall design: To investigate the dCas12:ScRNA activation on endogenous regulation, we used S. cereviase endogenous gene GAL7, HED1, CYC1 as our target genes. And the dCas12:ScRNA activators will bind on the promoter on these target genes.