Speaker: Kurt Marshall, Ph.D. R&D Scientist, Horizon Discovery
CRISPR-based genome editing has accelerated biological research and holds great potential for studying and treating human diseases. The CRISPR-Cas9 system requires a Cas9 nuclease and a guide RNA, which may consist of either a CRISPR RNA (crRNA) coupled with a trans-activating crRNA (tracrRNA), or a single guide RNA (sgRNA) that combines the crRNA and tracrRNA in a single molecule. Both guide RNA formats can be chemically synthesized, offering advantages over expression systems.
Kurt explains how synthetic guide RNAs are amenable to chemical modifications for increased stability, eliminate time-consuming steps of cloning and sequencing, and do not provoke the inherent immune response and cytotoxicity of in vitro transcribed guide RNAs. The synthetic guide RNAs can be readily delivered into cells for high-throughput arrayed screening applications and expand the types of phenotypic readouts to high-content and morphology-based assays.
Topics covered in this webinar:
- The development and application of Horizon Edit-R™ Synthetic sgRNA reagents for gene specific CRISPR knockout
- The functionality and performance of synthetic guide RNAs in several different cell models, including primary T cells
- How synthetic guide RNAs provide robust functional gene knockout and further simplify high-throughput loss-of-function screening
