The clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) technology represents the most recent advancement in genome engineering and has revolutionized the current practice of genetics in cells and organisms. CRISPR-based genome editing utilizes a single guide RNA (gRNA) to direct a CRISPR-associated endonuclease such as CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) and Cpf1 to a genomic DNA target that is complementary in sequence to the protospacer encoded by the gRNA with a specific protospacer adjacent motif (PAM)1,2. The PAM varies depending on the bacterial species of the Cas9 or Cpf1 gene. The most commonly used Cas9 nuclease derived from Streptococcus pyogenes (SpCas9) recognizes a PAM sequence of NGG that is found directly downstream of the target sequence in the genomic DNA, on the non-target strand. At the target site, the Cas9 and Cpf1 proteins generate a double-strand break (DSB), which is then repaired via intrinsic cellular DNA repair mechanisms including non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homology-directed repair (HDR) pathways3,4. In the absence of a DNA template for homologous recombination, the DSB is primarily repaired by the error-prone NHEJ pathway, which can result in insertions or deletions (indels) of nucleotides causing frameshift mutations if the DSB were created in the coding region of a gene5,6. Thus, the CRISPR system has been widely used to engineer loss-of-function mutations in various cellular models and whole organisms, in order to investigate the function of a gene. Moreover, the catalytically inactive Cas9 and Cpf1 have been developed to transcriptionally and epigenetically modulate the expression of target genes7,8.
More recently, both SpCas9 and SaCas9 (derived from Staphylococcus aureus) have been packaged into recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors for postnatal gene correction in the animal model of human diseases, particularly, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)9,10,11,12,13,14,15. DMD is a fatal X-linked recessive disease caused by mutations in the DMD gene, which encodes dystrophin protein16,17, affecting approximately one in 3500 male births according to newborn screening18,19. It is characterized by progressive muscle weakness and wasting. The DMD patients usually lose the ability to walk between 10 and 12 years of age and die of respiratory and/or cardiac failure by the age of 20-30 years20. Notably, cardiomyopathy develops in >90% of DMD patients and represents the leading cause of death in DMD patients21,22. Although Deflazacort (an anti-inflammation drug) and Eteplirsen (an exon skipping medicine for skipping exon 51) have recently been approved for DMD by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)23,24, none of these treatments correct the genetic defect at the genomic DNA level. The mdx mouse, which carries a point mutation at exon 23 of the dystrophin gene, has been widely used as a DMD model25. Furthermore, we previously demonstrated that the functional dystrophin expression was restored by in-frame deletion of the genomic DNA covering exons 21, 22 and 23 in skeletal muscles of mdx mice using intramuscular Ad-SpCas9/gRNA delivery9, and in the heart muscles of mdx/utrophin+/- mice using intravenous and intraperitoneal rAAVrh.74-SaCas9/gRNA delivery26.
In this protocol, we describe in detail every step in postnatal cardiac gene editing to restore dystrophin in mdx/utrophin+/- mice using rAAVrh.74-SaCas9/gRNA vectors, from gRNA design to dystrophin analysis in the heart muscle sections.