Engineering Human Cells Expressing CRISPR/Cas9-Synergistic Activation Mediators for Recombinant Protein Production

oleh: Colby J. Feser, James M. Williams, Daniel T. Lammers, Jason R. Bingham, Matthew J. Eckert, Jakub Tolar, Mark J. Osborn

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2023-05-01

Deskripsi

Recombinant engineering for protein production commonly employs plasmid-based gene templates for introduction and expression of genes in a candidate cell system in vitro. Challenges to this approach include identifying cell types that can facilitate proper post-translational modifications and difficulty expressing large multimeric proteins. We hypothesized that integration of the CRISPR/Cas9-synergistic activator mediator (SAM) system into the human genome would be a powerful tool capable of robust gene expression and protein production. SAMs are comprised of a “dead” Cas9 (dCas9) linked to transcriptional activators viral particle 64 (VP64), nuclear factor-kappa-B p65 subunit (p65), and heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) and are programmable to single or multiple gene targets. We integrated the components of the SAM system into human HEK293, HKB11, SK-HEP1, and HEP-g2 cells using <i>coagulation factor X (FX)</i> and <i>fibrinogen (FBN)</i> as proof of concept. We observed upregulation of mRNA in each cell type with concomitant protein expression. Our findings demonstrate the capability of human cells stably expressing SAM for user-defined singleplex and multiplex gene targeting and highlight their broad potential utility for recombinant engineering as well as transcriptional modulation across networks for basic, translational, and clinical modeling and applications.