Three-Component Repurposed Technology for Enhanced Expression: Highly Accumulable Transcriptional Activators via Branched Tag Arrays

In the past few years, several types of artificial transcriptional activator, based on CRISPR-Cas9, have been developed and refined. Of these, in synergistic activation mediator and SunTag systems, the effector proteins, expressed in trans, can be recruited to the target sites via the MS2 RNA-binding system and GCN4-scFv antibody system, respectively. Here, we report a strong transcriptional activation system achieved by fusing GCN4 repeat to MS2 coat protein to accumulate numbers of activators, fused to scFv antibodies. By targeting the CDH1 gene, we show that our novel system, named “TREE,” results in a greater effect of activating exogenous reporter and endogenous gene. Moreover, by targeting another gene, RANKL, we consistently show the superiority of the TREE system with fewer single-guide RNAs compared to conventional systems. Our TREE system is a promising tool for transcriptional activation and can potentially contribute to other dCas9-mediated technologies such as epigenome editing and chromosome visualization.