Xingxing Xu, Yonghui Tao, Xiaobo Gao, Lei Zhang, Xufang Li, Weiguo Zou, Kangcheng Ruan, Feng Wang, Guo-Liang Xu, Ronggui Hu
In mammalian cells, DNA methylation critically regulates gene expression and thus has pivotal roles in myriad of physiological and pathological processes. Here we report a novel method for targeted DNA demethylation using the widely used clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas system. Initially, modified single guide RNAs (sgRNAs) (sgRNA2.0) were constructed by inserting two copies of bacteriophage MS2 RNA elements into the conventional sgRNAs, which would facilitate the tethering of the Tet1 catalytic domain (Tet-CD), in fusion with dCas9 or MS2 coat proteins, to the targeted gene loci...
2016: Cell Discovery