Gene Editing by CRISPR/Cas12a

CRISPR/Cas12a is a promising genome editing system for targeting AT-rich genomic regions. Cas12a, also known as Cpf1, is small compared to Cas9. Moreover, the CRISPR/Cas12a system requires only two important components, the Cpf1 protein and a synthetic crRNA. These two components, reside on the same vector or two different vectors, can be used for delivery within plant cells by particle bombardment or Agrobacterium mediated method (Figure 1). The Cas12a cuts the DNA at the proximal end of the PAM, far away from the seed region, producing 5 base pair (bp) staggered cuts.

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of delivery of CRISPR/Cpf1 vector into plant cells and the mechanism action of editing. (Anshu et al., 2020)

As a leading biotechnology company in the industry, Lifeasible has a wealth of technology and talent reserves. We have accumulated rich experience in the field of plant gene editing. Our company has matured CRISPR/Cas12a gene editing system that can perform gene knockout, gene knock-in, CRISPR interference, CRISPR activation, single-base editing, gene library supervision and other services.

Comprehensive genome engineering requires simultaneous targeting of multiple genes at defined locations. Here at Lifeasible, to expand the targeting scope of Cas12a, we screen many Cas12a orthologs that have not been demonstrated in plants, and identify ErCas12a, TsCas12a, BsCas12a, MbCas12a, etc. Among them, Mb2Cas12a stands out with high editing efficiency and tolerance to low temperature. To enable large-scale genome engineering, we developed a Cas12a system that exhibits nearly 100% biallelic editing efficiency with the ability to target as many as 16 sites in rice and many other plants.

Figure 2. Simultaneous editing of six sites by Cas12a for multiplexed engineering of quantitative traits in rice. (Zhang, et al. 2021)

With excellent team in gene editing, Lifeasible offers one stop CRISPR/Cas12a services from cas12a optimization, sgRNA design, vector construction, plant transformation, to validation of gene editing type.

Experiment process

For more information or any inquiry requirements, please contact Lifeasible.