Structural insights into DNA cleavage activation of CRISPR-Cas9 system

Cong Huai, Gan Li, Ruijie Yao, Yingyi Zhang, Mi Cao, Liangliang Kong, Chenqiang Jia, Hui Yuan, Hongyan Chen, Daru Lu () and Qiang Huang ()
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Cong Huai: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University
Gan Li: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University
Ruijie Yao: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University
Yingyi Zhang: Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Mi Cao: Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Liangliang Kong: Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chenqiang Jia: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University
Hui Yuan: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University
Hongyan Chen: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University
Daru Lu: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University
Qiang Huang: School of Life Sciences, Fudan University

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract CRISPR-Cas9 technology has been widely used for genome engineering. Its RNA-guided endonuclease Cas9 binds specifically to target DNA and then cleaves the two DNA strands with HNH and RuvC nuclease domains. However, structural information regarding the DNA cleavage-activating state of two nuclease domains remains sparse. Here, we report a 5.2 Å cryo-EM structure of Cas9 in complex with sgRNA and target DNA. This structure reveals a conformational state of Cas9 in which the HNH domain is closest to the DNA cleavage site. Compared with two known HNH states, our structure shows that the HNH active site moves toward the cleavage site by about 25 and 13 Å, respectively. In combination with EM-based molecular dynamics simulations, we show that residues of the nuclease domains in our structure could form cleavage-compatible conformations with the target DNA. Together, these results strongly suggest that our cryo-EM structure resembles a DNA cleavage-activating architecture of Cas9.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01496-2

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